For Hazel McIntyre of Twin Falls, switching to a new diet following her husband’s diagnosis with diabetes four years ago was a “bummer.” “We were meat, gravy, and potatoes people,” said McIntyre about their eating habits before diabetes. In the years after, she tried “this and that” in the kitchen, but admits, “neither one of us was too well informed on the types of foods he was supposed to have in his diet.”

So when Rhea Lanting, extension educator in Twin Falls County, offered a series of classes in diabetes management, the two signed up.

McIntyre learned how to fix the dishes she and her husband love, just “better or differently,” and even learned that it’s okay to pour on some gravy now and then. “It gives you self confidence that you are doing the right thing,” said McIntyre of the class, “and it gives you so many different ideas.”

“A lot of people feel it’s too hard to have a proper diet and so they don’t do anything,” said Marnie Spencer, extension educator in Bingham County, who also has offered the classes. Developed by UI extension nutrition specialist Martha Raidl, the diabetes curriculum is based on the Idaho Plate Method, a simple, visual method of healthy meal planning invented by a group of Idaho dietitians.

“The problem people have with other approaches is you have to measure out a quarter cup of this, 3 ounces of that,” said Spencer. With the Idaho Plate Method, you devote a quarter of your nine-inch plate to meat, fish, or other protein, a quarter to starch, and a half to vegetables. Add a piece of fruit the size of a tennis ball and an 8-ounce glass of milk on the side, and you’ve put the food guide pyramid on a plate. “It’s a good eating plan for everyone,” said Lanting.

Raidl said she developed her diabetes curriculum because diabetes was simply the “number one” nutrition topic on the minds of Idahoans. Indeed, the Idaho Diabetes Control Program, part of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, estimates that more than 75,000 Idaho adults have diabetes and that nearly a third of them don’t even know it. “It’s an epidemic,” said Raidl, adding that “each year the incidence keeps increasing more and more.” Diabetes is directly linked to obesity, and with 61 percent of Americans overweight or obese, the epidemic isn’t expected to end anytime soon.

Proper diet can help prevent and control diabetes, but even among Idahoans diagnosed with diabetes, only one out of four eats the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

Uncontrolled, diabetes can lead to heart disease, kidney disease, blindness, and leg and foot amputations. Raidl’s curriculum encourages people with diabetes to take an active role in their health care, getting annual flu shots and seeing their doctor regularly for blood tests and foot and eye exams.

In Twin Falls, Larry Rawson suffered with poor circulation and other foot problems for years but never went to a doctor about it. It wasn’t until attending Rhea Lanting’s class that he learned that foot problems commonly attend diabetes and that medical attention might help. “I discovered that you have to take care of your feet,” he said.

Everyone who goes to extension educator Shelly Johnson’s classes in Kootenai County gets a card listing the American Diabetes Association’s “Standards of Care” for people with diabetes. She encourages her students to take the card with them on doctor visits two to four times a year to make sure they’re getting the recommended lab tests. “Education is the key,” Johnson said. “The more people know about their disease, the more apt they are to manage it better and long term.”

Participants in the “Dining Healthy with Diabetes” classes use real restaurant menus to figure out how to eat out and still eat right. They go up and down grocery store aisles reading and comparing food labels. They use visual aids to get a grip on serving sizes ( 3 ounces of meat is the size of a deck of cards), and they learn to translate serving sizes into helpings of prepared food. They find out how to modify recipes to make them lower in sugar and fat, and they taste for themselves which sugar substitutes hold up in baking. “It’s a hands-on class,” said Spencer. “They’re actually planning meals based on the foods they like.”

In Preston, Luana Esplin was at a loss for how to eat with diabetes until she signed up for extension educator Laura Sant’s classes. “The very first class I went to she showed the Idaho Plate Method and now I have a visual idea of what I should and shouldn’t eat,” she said. She now knows not to serve corn and peas, both high in starch, on the same plate, and she attends the monthly diabetes support group Sant organized at the request of workshop participants.

With funding from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Idaho Diabetes Control Program is making Raidl’s curriculum available to qualified instructors statewide, especially in rural communities where health care education may be lacking. Extension has an established educational presence in rural areas, said Mimi Hartman, program manager, “That’s why cooperative extension is such a good partner for us.”

Hartman’s office is also evaluating surveys of participants’ eating habits before and after they took the classes. Although the sample size is small and evaluation is continuing, Hartman says people do seem to eat better after taking the classes. According to Raidl, 80 percent of participants could correctly plan a meal by the time the course was over. They were also eating more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.

Cathy Dougal, head cook at the Oasis Shelter Home in Caldwell, took the classes from Canyon County extension educator Joey Peutz. She discovered that eating with diabetes doesn’t need to mean feeling deprived. “You will walk away from any meal feeling satisfied,” Dougal said. And as for cooking diabetic meals, “You don’t have to change your cooking habits and styles a lot,” she said. “Just small changes in your cooking habits can make a difference.”

To her surprise, the plate method allows for real ice cream, something she had never served to her residents with diabetes before but does now. “This seems kind of silly, but for someone who’s diabetic it isn’t silly, it’s ‘Wow, I can eat real food.’”

Using artificial sweeteners in cooking

Could YOU have diabetes and not know it?

For more information:
American Diabetes Association
1701 North Beauregard Street
Alexandria, VA 22311
1-800-DIABETES
(1-800-342-2383)
www.diabetes.org