Dr Dana Beasley (Wales Deputy Officer at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health) was shocked to see cases of scurvy in Wales. I read the article and felt dismayed. How has it come to this that there are children in Wales short of vitamin C. And many are also short of vitamin D. The Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Rocio Cifuentes argues that healthy food is more expensive than rubbish. I often read this argument and can’t help wondering how true it is.

I’m aware at the lack of cooking facilities some families have, and more prevalent, the lack of skill and time. Cookery programmes seem to promote the use of expensive ingredients, complicated recipes and equipment for which there’s no space in most people’s kitchens. This is not cooking I was brought up with. My own culinary endeavours embrace a far broader palette than my mother’s but the methods employed are the same, using fresh ingredients and a minimum of fuss, easy and cheap.

I’m of course from a generation that was brought up to eat what was put in front of us with most parents, mothers usually, preparing food from scratch. I’ve always done the same. Fresh carrots, potatoes and onions are pretty cheap. Add a can of any supermarket’s own brand of beans to it and you can make a nutritious cottage pie. My generation of parents also worked full-time. I understand the stress many families are under but it’s nothing new. My grandfather worked full-time on the railways, was a cobbler part-time and he grew vegetables on two acres. Time is a nebulous concept.

Mach Maethon’s work to tackle the enormous problems caused by bad diets is fantastic. The almost £100k funding the Machynlleth organisation has received for their Grow, Cook, Eat Together project is money well spent. Changing habits, especially dietary addictions to ultra-processed foods, needs tackling urgently. Community projects like Edible Mach form part of the solution. How about our legislators? MS Jenny Rathbone told the Senedd, “The food industry spends billions promoting our disastrous diets and we have to use the power of community to fight back.” Yes Jenny, but how about using the power invested in the Senedd? We don’t vote for you to just talk; we want you to advance policies that curb the power of those food industries. You also have the power to tackle health inequalities, education provision and poor housing.

Many other community groups do their bit. I know that some foodbanks hand out cookery books and offer meals on a weekly basis using fresh ingredients. I’m sure supermarkets could play a bigger part. Most welcome customers with the fruit and vegetable aisles, brilliant. How about they have cooking demonstrations? How about they serve healthy meals in their restaurants instead of all-day fatty fried breakfasts? I’ve been to restaurants that offer a small bowl of soup or salad for free when you order a main course. Maybe our local restaurants could offer all children a healthy starter.

The Government is set to decrease the welfare budget. That’s not going to help our poorest families and be disastrous for disabled people. Poorer citizens can’t be expected to carry the burden of our troublesome times. Will we see more scurvy? In this rich nation all adults in a position to tackle this scourge need to pull their weight. It’s not as if the knowledge of bad diets and lack of exercise is new. The Lancet reported this week that “the global prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents [has] increased by 244 percent in the past 30 years.” Time we get growing, food of course.