WE eat far fewer fresh vegetables that we did 50 years ago. "We're not eating enough of the good stuff," says Jamie Oliver. Meanwhile consumption of ultra processed food (which is contributing to ballooning ill health and obesity) has rocketed.

I visited one of west Cornwall's success stories Riviera Produce last week; shown around by David Simmons, head of this sixth-generation family business, which farms more than 7,500 (mostly rented) acres, and employs more than 500 people. They supply five major supermarkets and other supply chains with caulis, broccoli, spring greens, cabbage, courgettes, squash; support many local food charities; and are keenly developing lower carbon, more sustainable and lower input production systems.

The sector has changed so much since the days of my parents' three-acre market garden in Mullion which I was brought up on. Where my father produced over 40 varieties of fruit, vegetables and salad produce and - apart from pittosporum which we sent by train to Covent Garden in winter - sold everything within a couple of miles of home; plastic-free into reusable containers or paper bags. Though understandably, many want us to return to those more sustainable, lower food miles' systems, Riviera Produce has responded well to and is the inevitable product of the demands of the modern market. There were many small market gardens like my family’s in the 60s and 70s. Hardly any can now survive commercially in the present climate.

Henry Dimbleby, author of the UK’s national food strategy, succinctly sums up the challenge we face in attempting to reverse the growth in ultra-processed food: “Our food system makes the bad stuff easy and cheap to eat and the good stuff expensive and hard.” However, producers like Riviera are doing the hard work to produce good quality, accessible and affordable fresh veg, if only we can just encourage more people to prepare and consume them.

My Health Select Committee’s ‘Inquiry into Healthy-eating and Weight-management’ should take heed.

So, government ministers will appeal against High Court Judges who declared the ban on protest group Palestine Action unlawful. Thousands of protestors – including in Cornwall - who have been arrested under inappropriate use of “anti-terrorism” laws have exposed this Putineque style of government.

Instead of appealing, the Government should accept this ruling and:

• Make clear to Israel’s far-right Netanyahu regime that the UK opposes its ongoing genocide in Gaza (even after the so-called "ceasefire");

• Ban all trade with Israel's illegal "settlements";

• Stop arming Israel;

• Stop Netanyahu's curb on international aid, medicine, independent media reporting;

• Promote the use of international peacekeepers to secure the peace and get the IDF out;

• Work with all parties to secure a two-state solution which protects both Israel and Palestine to co-exist in peace and mutual respect;

• Stop wasting taxpayers' money on curbing the right to free speech and protest, including those campaigning against genocide and for peace.