‘Never thought I’d eat that’: how vegetable prescriptions are helping Britons with diabetes

Why This Matters

Key context: <p>WellFed participants in Cornwall report better blood sugar levels with help of free veg boxes, cooking and gardening</p><p>The participants admitted that throughout their life, their food choices had been far from ideal: egg and chips, hearty roasts, raw fry – a Cornish <a href="https://www.thesolochef.co.uk/cornish-raw-fry-for-one/">one-pan dish</a> of bacon, potatoes and onions, often fried in lard and once beloved of miners and fishers.</p><p>But here they were, at a community orchard in the harbourside town of St Ives in south-west Cornwall, massaging Swiss chard (to soften the leaves), dicing carrots, adding lentils into a pot to create a <a href="https://www.diabetes.org.uk/living-with-diabetes/eating/carbohydrates-and-diabetes/glycaemic-index-and-diabete">low-GI</a>, high-fibre – and tasty – shepherd’s bake.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/nov/13/diabetes-wellfed-vegetable-prescriptions-cornwall">Continue reading...</a> This development from The Guardian highlights ongoing changes in the sector.