Dining with Diabetes is a series of four classes conducted by Ohio State University Extension Family and Consumer Sciences and community health partners.

The program can include:

  • Live cooking demonstrations
  • Menu planning
  • Diabetes management
  • Carbohydrate-counting
  • Insights on portion control
  • Label-reading
  • Healthy recipe taste-testing

Diabetes costs Ohio $4.6 billion annually. According to 2015 state of Ohio data, more than 11.7% of Ohio adults have been diagnosed with diabetes — an increase of almost 37% since 2000. If these trends continue, 1 in 3 Ohioans will develop diabetes sometime in their lifetime. Those with diabetes lose an average of 10–15 years of potential life and can develop serious complications such as cardiovascular disease, blindness, kidney failure and non-traumatic lower extremity amputations.

Nutrition is the cornerstone of diabetes management, and Dining with Diabetes helps Ohioans manage their own or that of a family member’s diabetes through nutrition education. Participants learn to prepare healthy, well-balanced meals without compromising taste.