To celebrate National Diabetes Awareness Month, Pocahontas Memorial Hospital teamed with Pocahontas IGA to host diabetes friendly “tasting stations” around its store last Tuesday.
PMH staff manned the stations, offering free samples, recipes and healthy tips. Recipes revolved around traditional Thanksgiving foods with a slightly more healthy twist. Stations included cranberry spinach salad in the produce section, pumpkin pie parfaits in the dairy section, orange roasted turkey in the meat section, and a very low carb cauliflower stuffing in the deli area.
This was a fun event to raise awareness of diabetes and share a healthier way of cooking. Many shoppers immediately began looking for ingredients to prepare the recipes and commented that they would not need to cook dinner after they got home because they were having so much fun visiting the different stations. The day was made possible through the work and collaboration of PMH and Pocahontas IGA, and was funded by a grant from the Snowshoe Foundation.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that Pocahontas County has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the state with almost 11 percent of our population aged 20 or older being told by a doctor that they have diabetes. Not included in this are the many folks who are at risk for diabetes, or have pre-diabetes or simply do not know that they have diabetes. Almost 26 million people in the United States have diabetes and it is estimated that as many as one in every three adults will have the disease by the year 2050.
PMH hosts a Diabetes Support Group on the third Tuesday of each month. Join us for our next meeting Tuesday, January 21, at 6:30 p.m. Meetings are a time of education and fellowship.
For more information about the Support Group or diabetes education at PMH, contact Terry Wagner at 304-799-7400. You may also visit our website at www.pmhwv.org/pmhdiabetes to learn more about the many opportunities we offer for education and support.