Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
Three years have passed since the making, and all the efforts and collaboration have been rewarded for members of the Pocahontas County Diabetes Assistance Group. With the help of Dr. Samantha Minc and later medical student Jordan O'dell, the group and its educator Terry Wagner have published and released a diabetic and mentally healthy cookbook featuring local recipes.
Oddly enough, the book is called “Pocahontas County Diabetes and Heart Healthy Cookbook.”
The effort began in 2023 when MINC and O'Dell joined Wagner to offer educational programs to the group, and decided to create a cookbook of what they learned.
Initially, the group planned to just share the recipes with each other, but it soon began to include more.
“One page has a recipe and the next page has a description of the changed recipe,” says Minc. “WVU's Cooking Medical Program has been added to fill out cookbooks.
“Then on the back is a conversation on how to make a healthy meal, the key to success, a grocery list and example diet rules,” she added.
The book also includes information about Foot Health, one of the reasons Minc joined the program.
In 2017, WVU conducted a state-level analysis of diabetes and access to treatment. As a vascular surgeon, MINC, focused on preventing amputations due to diabetes and vascular disease, he wanted to provide education on foot health, which is directly affected by diabetes.
“We focused on groups throughout the state and talked to people who were diabetics and those who were caring for diabetics about amputations and tried to understand their barriers and challenges,” she said.
Using the results of that study, MINC worked with doctors in Pocahontas County to ensure foot tests were performed on diabetic patients.
“We came up with the idea of intervention for the trio. One of them was to conduct high-quality diabetes testing in clinics and connect people to pediatricians. “The other was to create an interdisciplinary limb conservation team and make it available to rural patients on a project called Echo.”
Echo is a teleconference medical platform that allows rural patients to meet with their podiatrists to receive preventive care and to be less likely to require amputation.
The third was meeting with the diabetes support group and creating a cookbook.
MINC has enlisted at O'Dell, a vascular surgery resident at Duke University. At the time of the project, O'Dell was a medical student at WVU and was part of a new cooking medical truck.
“WVU offers additional learning tracks that can be done in medical schools, known as cooking tracks,” Odell said. “We have to do the community education kitchen. We do various modules. We learn how to prescribe diet for a variety of chronic conditions, including cancer, diabetes, chronic heart failure.”
Odell came to Pocahontas County to conduct a food insecurity survey and provide kitchen teaching at the food pantry.
Minc and O'Dell then connected with Wagner, who led the monthly diabetes support group for the Pocahontas County Family Resource Network.
“They met each month and worked together,” Minc said. “They had an incredible curriculum, whatever resources I can provide through WVU or Duke, I try to help them out, and they have done such a great job.
Cookbooks are a major achievement, but the results of foot health interventions are even greater.
“Prefectures – they not only increased the number of foot tests, but also reduced the number of people who needed to be hospitalized or visited for ulcers,” Minc said. “They reduced the number of foot ulcers that were appearing in clinics.
“We're just trying to see if we can get people to do more foot exams,” she continued. “These numbers were amazing, but the numbers in the results were amazing.”
Next is to bring the cookbook to the masses.
Mink said she and Wagner will be book tours of “Pocahontas County Diabetes and Heart Health Cookbooks” throughout West Virginia, and are available online.
The digital version is free to download, and physical copies are available from Amazon.
All proceeds from the book go to the FRN and the Diabetes Assistance Group.