Wellness Eats
In 2006, Sarah Swain lost her mother to ovarian cancer. During the cancer diagnosis, treatment and the continuous battle that is cancer itself, Swain was made aware that there was nothing available in the area by way of integrative wellness therapies. This stirred something within her. Five years ago that stirring led to a conversation that led to more conversations, that eventually led to a new non-profit organization; Swain soon founded Cape Wellness Collaborative and became its executive director.
The mission of this organization is simple: to provide free, complementary, integrative wellness therapies to anyone on Cape Cod & the Islands who is undergoing or recovering from cancer treatments, such as radiation or chemotherapy. Approved applicants receive a Cape Wellness Card with an initial value of $250, which can be used with any of Cape Wellness Collaborative’s participating practitioners. The goal is simplicity. No billing, no redundancy, no headaches—people facing cancer are already going through enough. The philosophy can be replicated anywhere. It’s simple and straightforward. As of June 2019, Cape Wellness Collaborative had served more than 630 clients and distributed almost $240,000 in integrative wellness therapies. Now Swain and Cape Wellness Collaborative have their sights set on another gift to cancer patients: nutrition.
Before Swain’s mother passed, she had a tough decision to make. Should she face another round of aggressive treatment, or live as much life as she could...until she couldn’t? Her mother chose not to take treatment, and it was a difficult choice. She soon felt the effects of her illness, and of her choice. Her stomach was filled with fluid and distended. “As her daughter, I felt helpless,” Swain recalls. “I remember asking the doctor, ‘what should I feed her, what should I do, how can I help her?’ Her doctor ended up telling me there is no science to back any of that up. She should just eat whatever she wants.” Swain says, “There was a gnawing feeling within me saying ‘that just can’t be true. Everything we put in our body affects our body.’” Swain read the book, Beating Cancer With Nutrition, by Dr. Patrick Quillin. In it, she found motivation to help her mother find a level of comfort with a more nutritious diet, helping her as she lived with cancer.
Swain says she learned a lot of lessons. One is that when people get sick, friends, wanting to share their support, often bring over sugary treats as a way of showing their love. While the brownies, cookies and cupcakes they bring are often the very comfort foods we crave when we are stressed out, these treats are not what our bodies, already stressed with compromised immune systems, need.
Within two weeks of following the recipes, cutting out the sugar, and eating low-glycemic, nutrient-dense food, Swain’s mother’s swelling went down and her healthy skin coloring came back. “She felt great,” Swain said. “It was profound, the difference it made in her. What a stunning difference! The reality is the nutrition did not save her life in the end, but her quality of life was really great to the very end.” The plain truth? Cancer hates nutrition.
According to Dr. Quillin, director of nutrition for Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Tulsa, Oklahoma, “Of the four million cancer patients being treated in America today, hardly any are offered any scientifically-guided nutrition therapy beyond being told to ‘just eat good foods.’ Controlling one’s blood-glucose levels through diet, supplements, exercise, meditation and prescription drugs (when necessary) can be one of the most crucial components to a cancer program.”
Priding themselves on being a local grassroots non-profit, Cape Wellness Collaborative has grown through the last five years in ways that define the word “synchronicity.” Swain says, “The right people showed up at the right time. Everything came together very naturally. The timing was just right.” This showed itself true again last year when a mutual friend (and Cape Wellness Collaborative client) introduced Swain to Gabrielle Kennedy, a natural foods chef. Kennedy, a Cape Cod native, spent three months in Cameroon in 2018 as a volunteer chef on the largest non-governmental hospital ship in the world The Mercy Ship. In addition, for the past five years she has worked as a seasonal chef for First Descents, an adventure camp for young adult cancer survivors.
Swain describes Kennedy as having “a lot of experience cooking healthy and delicious foods for large amounts of people. She is an amazing chef. Gabrielle has a je ne sais quoi feeling, where you eat her food, and you say to yourself ‘this isn’t good for me’, but it is. It feels like comfort food, you feel truly nourished.”
Kennedy leads the team, along with local dietitians at Delicious Living Nutrition, Nicole Cormier and Dianna Carpentieri. The dream team of Swain’s Wellness Collaborative, Kennedy’s cooking, and Delicious Living Nutrition were on the same mission. Blending their vast knowledge and experience, they created Wellness Eats in August of 2018. With this initiative they began creating healthy, nutritious and delicious meals for cancer patients.
Kennedy states, “My goal (and the goal of the Wellness Eats initiative) is to make sure that people on the Cape facing cancer have access to delicious and easy food while providing them, and their caregivers, with crucial nutrition during their journey. This is also an opportunity for our clients to try out a new way of eating, which includes approachable food that happens to be tasty, plant-focused and nutrient-rich. My belief is that good nutrition is a critical component in cancer treatment and management. I also believe in the power of using ‘food as medicine’ to help recover from surgery and other medical procedures.”
A small pilot program began in the winter of 2018. The team handed out four recipes to several cancer patients and their caregivers, asking for feedback. They wanted to understand how the food tasted to patients. They wanted to know if it was still good after being frozen, thawed, reheated. They wanted to be sure they were on the right path and expected some critiques. Much to their surprise, no one came back with anything they thought needed to change. There was no need to go back to the drawing board. Today the Wellness Eats team has six substantial recipes, and they have added nutrition interns and volunteers to help with cooking and freezing the meals. How does it work?
In August 2019, the team began providing meals to ten people who are in active cancer treatment. As well as being a dietician at Delicious Living, Carpentieri is the nutritionist in the oncology department at Cape Cod Hospital. Being “in the field”, she is able to identify specific people dealing with cancer. If they choose to be involved, they get three free meals a week, for a total of six meals, delivered to their house. “These are meals that can be frozen as well,” Swain says. “We are sensitive to dietary restrictions and preferences. For example, if someone has a head/neck cancer they would probably be recipients of the soups.”
Swain notes that, “unlike Cape Wellness where you can use our program during and at the end of their cancer treatment, Wellness Eats really is for people who are in active cancer treatment, like post surgery, or going through chemo or radiation. These cancer patients are really in the midst of it and they could really use this additional nutritional support along with their caregiver.”
Wellness Eats is also committed to sourcing the food it serves. Board member and owner of Rory’s Market in Mashpee Commons (formally Organic Market), Rory Eames, is helping with budgeting, food costs and food itself. Swain says enthusiastically, “We are really focused on local produce being in the meals whenever possible. We are making sure all the ingredients are the best we can possibly get to put in there.”
For now, the interest in Cape Wellness Collaborative is growing fast. Key fundraisers like Dancing With the Docs, Cape Cod Women’s Music Festival and the Rocktail Party are raising awareness along with funding. Creating initiatives such as Wellness Eats is part of a continuing effort to help support, teach and feed cancer patients and their caregivers in our community. It is truly paying homage to the memory of Swain’s mother, helping people feel better as they fight cancer. It has been the heart and soul of Cape Wellness since the start. Swain reflects, “That is what we want people to receive from us...to feel better.”
If you are a cancer patient and could benefit from Cape Wellness Collaborative services, a practitioner who would like to offer your services, or want to support Cape Wellness Collaborative, visit capewellness.org or call 774-408-8477.
