I slipped off my shoes at the entrance of the Kitsilano Community Centre, where a dozen people had gathered on a drizzly Vancouver evening. The aroma of roasted root vegetables and herbal tea filled the air. This was no ordinary cooking class—it was the front line of diabetes prevention in one of Canada’s most health-conscious cities.
“My doctor told me I was pre-diabetic last year,” whispered Maria, a 56-year-old elementary school teacher beside me, as we chopped carrots for a stew. “It scared me. My mother lost her vision to diabetes before she died.”
Maria’s story echoes across Canada, where approximately 11.7 million people live with diabetes or prediabetes. According to Diabetes Canada, these numbers have doubled in the past two decades, with direct healthcare costs reaching $30 billion annually. Behind these statistics are stories of families grappling with a condition that transforms daily rituals—like cooking dinner—into medical decisions.
The cooking workshop, led by Nuu-chah-nulth dietitian Jessica Sault, focuses on rebuilding relationships with traditional foods and sustainable eating patterns. “Diabetes wasn’t common in Indigenous communities before colonization and processed foods,” Sault explains while demonstrating how to prepare salmon. “The disconnection from cultural food systems has had devastating consequences.”
The diabetes crisis in Canada reflects broader societal shifts. Environments increasingly filled with ultra-processed foods, car-dependent neighborhoods, and stress-inducing work schedules create what public health experts call “obesogenic environments”—conditions where maintaining healthy habits becomes challenging regardless of personal willpower.
When I visited the Dease Lake community in northern BC last summer, I witnessed how food sovereignty intersects with health outcomes. The community-led grocery cooperative prioritizes affordable produce and traditional foods, which had been increasingly displaced by cheaper, shelf-stable alternatives high in refined carbohydrates.
“We’re not just selling food,” explained cooperative manager Robert Charlie. “We’re rebuilding our connection to the land and creating alternatives to the processed foods that have infiltrated our diets.”
Research from the University of Toronto has demonstrated that neighborhood food environments significantly influence diabetes rates. Communities with limited access to fresh foods show diabetes rates up to 37% higher than areas with diverse food options. This disparity falls disproportionately on low-income communities, creating what researchers call a “diabetes gradient” across socioeconomic lines.
Dr. Janet Thomson, an endocrinologist at Vancouver General Hospital, sees the consequences daily. “We’re excellent at managing diabetes with medication, but terrible at preventing it through policy and community design,” she tells me during her clinic hours. “I can prescribe insulin, but I can’t prescribe affordable housing near grocery stores or time for meal preparation.”
The connection between stress and metabolic health represents another frontier in diabetes prevention. Chronic stress triggers hormonal changes that affect insulin regulation and encourage comfort eating, creating a physiological cycle that’s difficult to break through individual willpower alone.
“We blame people for conditions created by systems,” explains Dr. Thomson. “Then we wonder why traditional diabetes prevention strategies focusing solely on individual choices have limited success.”
Innovative prevention programs like the one I’m observing tonight take a different approach. Rather than focusing exclusively on carbohydrate counts or glycemic indices, they center on the joy of food, cultural connections, and community support.
“It’s not about denial—it’s about abundance,” Sault says as participants share a meal they prepared together. “There are thousands of whole foods that nourish both body and spirit. Learning to prepare them together creates sustainable habits.”
Canada’s Food Guide has evolved to recognize this holistic approach, moving away from strict portion controls toward an emphasis on cooking at home, eating with others, and enjoying cultural foods—shifts that align with emerging research on sustainable dietary change.
Back at the community center, Maria samples the vegetable stew she helped prepare. “This doesn’t feel like a diet,” she says. “It feels
