As we start the New Year I would be interested to hear your view on the quality of food available to us.

How many of you during the Christmas holidays bought food that you actually threw away or could only use some of it because it had deteriorated so much?

I feel it is time to name and shame the supermarkets who. I feel. are not interested in the quality of the food they sell but purely in the enormous profits they are making.

I usually buy organic food whenever I can but this Christmas what I found was that organic bananas all went black within 24 hours, tomatoes tasted like water and celery was limp and had no freshness about it at all.

This situation would not be tolerated in France or Italy where they demand the best for their families.

I think its time we did the same for the sake of our health and the health of our families.

You may not be aware but many supermarkets store food for months prior to putting it on the shelves and I am convinced that at this time of year they have held food back to ensure that they get top prices during the festive season.

It has been reported that British apples and pears could be nine months old, lettuce one month old, carrots one to nine months old and potatoes up to twelve months old; what is this doing to the nutritional value of these foods?

It is true to say that when food is stored for long periods it loses important nutrients e.g. Vitamins A, C and E, as well as riboflavin, all essential for a healthy diet.

Also there is something seriously wrong with a system that sells us produce like onions and apples from as far afield as New Zealand – and supplies them more cheaply than locally grown. How does that make sense?

We must demand higher standards and one of the ways that we can do this is by “voting with our feet”!

Start the New Year by supporting local farmers, buy your food from farmers’ markets, or direct from the farmer, there is a website Farm Retail Association:

www.farmshopping.com

The other alternative is to subscribe to one of the box schemes available which supply fresh produce costing between £5 and £15 delivered to your door.

The boxes contain fresh produce, usually from local farms, which varies according to the season.

The other huge benefit of buying locally is the reduction of food miles. I was reading recently that a dinner of chicken, runner beans, carrots, mange tout, sprouts and potatoes could have begun its journey in countries including Thailand and Zambia, with the ingredients covering a total of 24,364 miles before it reached the plate.

By comparison a similar meal, but substituting British cabbage and parsnips for the beans and mange tout need only have traveled about 376 miles if bought from a farmers’ market.