Food for Life: Diabetes Initiative

The road to diabetes and prediabetes does not have to be a one-way street. There is reason for hope!

About this Event

This is a plant-based nutrition and cooking program for type 2 diabetes prevention and treatment developed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Your instructors for this class will be Tiffany Wilkerson and Mark Cerkvenik. See more information about them below.

The intended audience for this program is people with diabetes, prediabetes (defined below), a family history or risk factors for developing diabetes, and their adult family members. It is also designed to introduce health care professionals to the basics of plant-based nutrition for preventing and treating diabetes.

Diabetes is a major public health problem of epidemic proportions. More than 12 percent of the U.S. adult population has diabetes, and more than one-quarter of the population over 65 has the disease. One out of four people with diabetes is unaware they have it, which means they are not being treated with a healthy diet or medications. Uncontrolled, diabetes can lead to complications from head to toe, including stroke, loss of vision, heart disease, kidney failure, and various problems due to nerve damage and circulatory problems, such as erectile dysfunction or lower-extremity amputation.

An even greater number of people have prediabetes (impaired fasting glucose, impaired glucose tolerance, or both), which mean they are at high risk for developing diabetes. With prediabetes, blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. There are 86 million people in the United States who have prediabetes and they are generally without symptoms. Recent research has shown that some long-term damage to the body, especially the heart and circulatory system, may already be occurring during prediabetes. A blood test is used to diagnose prediabetes. Fifteen to thirty percent of people with prediabetes will develop diabetes within five years. Weight loss can prevent or delay this onset.

An astonishing one in three children born in the year 2000 is at risk of developing type 2 diabetes (and one in two African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans) in his or her lifetime, unless there are significant changes in diet and activity levels. Fortunately, type 2 diabetes is largely a disease of over-nutrition and sedentary lifestyle. The disease can be prevented, and complications can often be avoided or treated with a significant change in lifestyle.

This is an on-line interactive class with videos, cooking demonstrations and a Q&A session.

As a result of this course you will:

1. Understand how a plant based diet can improve your blood glucose level

2. Receive state of the art scientific information on Diabetes

3. Receive access to hundreds of simple recipes

About Tiffany:

If you have ever had the opportunity to meet Tiffany, you will see why she is described as a “Plant-Based Gardener” whose zeal to plant as many seeds of nutritional health and awareness is second to none. With some rooted knowledge watered with life application, her desire is for everyone to blossom and grow into a better quality of life through food.

Her heart, experience, and education speak for themselves. She first began her transition in 2010 upon losing one of the most important people in her life, her grandmother, Dorothy. After her passing, it was then Tiffany immediately knew that her life must change, nutritionally. And thus from there, first starting as a Pescatarian and then transitioning again, a whole food plant based life was born. Committed to this very new way of living, she immersed herself (and continues to do so) in plant-based learning.

Proudly, she continues to expand her knowledge of plant-based nutrition.

Tiffany is a Licensed Food For Life Instructor with the Physicians For Responsible Medicine. She is a graduate of the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies from eCornell University earning a Plant-Based Certification, and received her Culinary Plant Based Certification from Rouxbe Forks Over Knives Culinary School. She has also obtained her Certified Health/Wellness Coach Certification with an emphasis on Lifestyle Medicine from WellCoaches School of Coaching, and completed the Culinary Health Education Coaching Program from Harvard University. More about Tiffany

About Mark:

Mark grew up on the southwest side of Chicago and worked in healthcare for nearly 40 years for organizations such as Loyola University Health System and Northwestern Medicine, training and coaching clinical and non-clinical leaders. Although a vegetarian (eating cheese, fish and veggies) for over 25 years, not until he adopted a whole food plant-based diet did he see tremendous improvement in his health and a path to maintain a healthy weight.

In addition to being a Food For Life Instructor, Mark provides coaching for individuals and couples on transitioning to a sustainable plant based diet as well as community workshops and workplace seminars on a variety of health and wellness related topics. More about Mark