Do you eat ready meals regularly?

We do sometimes, its easier to get ones for dietary needs now, m&s do some really nice plant based ready meals.

Almost never. Probably had 3 in about 10 years.

Like you I find that cooking from frozen rarely turns out well so I generally defrost it fully before reheating it slowly. Wet dishes like bolognase, curries, chillis and pie fillings reheat the best.

I meal plan for the week since we moved to the arse of nowhere and I'm never home before 7. Before then I lived right beside a lidl and would pop in after work. So I suppose because we have no choice if we didn't fancy it, we just have to get on with it or swap it for something planned for another day.

This week is the week before payday so I was running down the freezer stuff: I am lucky that DH is at home so if I forget to take it out to defrost then I can ring him to do it. If not, then I usually have something that can be quick and easy as a back up like a frozen fish mix for a seafood chowder or pop into the local garage on my way home.

Saturday was fish fingers (freezer), mushy peas (tinned) and mash (fresh)
Sunday I defrosted a half leg of lamb the day before, stuck that in the oven and served with green beans and mash (both fresh) - I was going to do roasties but couldn't be arsed. Tonight I've carbonara lined up- the grated parmasan and pecorino is frozen as is the pancetta but you can still shake out the required amount of cheese and the pancetta defrosts pretty quickly. I'll throw together some garlic bread as well. Slow cooker beef stew on Wednesday, jambalaya (in the freezer from a previous batch on Thursday) and a takeaway on Friday.

I don't freeze leftovers - I used to but then there would be loads of mystery lumps of food so now I use up any leftovers as lunches the next day. So far since I defrosted the freezer in November, I actually know everything that's in my freezer for a change.

I’m as middle class as they come. Eat ready meals probably 2 or 3 times a week. . Work full time and there’s only 2 of us. It’s usually a Charlie Bingham or M&S curry, or the Sainsbury’s curry in a bag. Also fish fingers, breaded chicken or silmilar once a week.

husband eats tinned soup most days…he prefers my home made soup but won’t make soup himself.

im a good cook,he’s a reasonable cook….but buying a ready meal, adding salad, you get someth8ng nice and tasty, little thought etc.

Ive got bored of cooking…

I have genuinely never eaten a ready meal of the tray variety. My parents were definitely cook from scratch types - made their own bread, cakes and yoghurt etc..

I have lived a lot of my adult life in London though, so if I can't be arsed to cook there are plenty of places to eat out or pick up food from.

I do eat some ready made foods - tinned soup, pies, breaded fish (we habe breaded haddock goujons for dinner tonight) etc.. but actual ready meals always look fairly unappetising and pretty expensive for what they are to me. I have also never owned a microwave so I am not sure how. The assembled meals on a tray could be beated up.

Good point others have brought up about price. It would actually be pretty expensive for us to buy ready meals. But I do sometimes get them if they're reduced.

DH and I take it in turns to cook from scratch 6 days a week. On the 7th day we usually have a takeaway but on occasion, if funds are low we get a microwave curry or a pizza to bung in the oven.
I'm a far better cook nowadays than I used to be though. Before I learned to cook properly I relied on ready meals a lot more.

My dad - washes face with anything that foams, wore SPF sometime in the 70s, eats mostly meat and carbs with the occasional pea, looks a decade younger and doesn't take any medication

Me - skincare routine, healthy diet, SPF daily, exercises... riddled with autoimmune conditions and rattle with meds

I actually don't eat ready meals.
Never bought them for my DC either.
It's only two of us at home now but I find them expensive.

I've a range of DF's who's elderly parents live alone and either buy/eat M&S ready meals or like my FIL have them delivered from Wilshire farm foods.
Which is probably so much easier for them.

During my school days, yonks ago my DM worked in school kitchens when dinners were cooked from scratch, even a day or so of the school holidays were used to batch cook and freeze meals for home use as she'd spend every school day cooking it gave her somewhat of a break from it to grab something from.the freezer so it's what I was taught and I've always done it.

Admittedly I'll buy mini pizza's for DH for a quick weekend lunch, sausages, potato croquets, and humms as life's is to short, and tahini paste is also expensive and goes off before I use it all up...although I did buy a small bag of sesame seeds this week to have a go at making my own.

More and more people are time poor today so it's whatever suits them best. No one size fits all.

I rarely cook. I live alone in a tiny flat with a tiny kitchen. I work long hours so I don’t want to spend any free time cooking or washing up. I get some well tasty ready meals.

I think it probably depends how rich you are and how big your family is. I have a large family so ready meals aren’t really a help and we can eat much better and more quickly if I cook. I do buy baked beans for one of my children because they adore them and don’t eat enough protein for my liking.

I don't believe everyone on here... our supermarkets are made up o 50% ready meals or components of such so who's buying them? Marks and Spencer's entire business is ready meals (ok lots are oven cooked, but they are ready meals.) and also ready meals aren't always terrible. At the same time cooking isn't great either if you use ready made sauces,noodles, seasonings etc. all these things are upf. What about lunch / breakfast.... cereal is ultra processed, as is factory bread. So why demonise microwave meals especially? No worse than a ham sandwich made from cheap products.

I often pick something up from m and s on the way home if I can't be bothered cooking. I have a very healthy diet generally.

I think the 'who' might have been 'which poster' rather than what is Chat GPT.
Still a strange reply because Gwendolyn's posts are so robotic I'm surprised OP didn't see that.
For what it's worth I think Gwendolyn is a real person who just spouts some pre-prepared reply instead of reacting to other posts.

I think this does illustrate how no one can do everything. You cook from scratch for your family and work a high pressured job four days a week, which is great, but you don’t recognise the name of a programme that’s regularly been front page news for the last 4-6 months because of concerns that programmes like it will decimate the labour market.

No judgment! Just saying.

We have a couple in the freezer for lazy nights, but mostly we batch cook and freeze. My parents only ever ate ready-made, so I did want to eat better myself. My kids eat more ready meals though, particularly my youngest who is possibly ASD and we struggle to get her to eat much of anything

I'm a delivery driver for a supermarket and I can assure you people consume massive amounts of them. Singles, family's, the elderly. Loads. I thought I was wierd for a long time as I don't eat them.

I thought the exact same!

Yes, agreed - those responses are 100% ChatGPT or Bard. It’s exactly how they write.

It’s actually really interesting how incredibly obvious it is on a thread like this!

I don't know why you would think that? I think plenty of people just don't have them on their radar. I've said previously that I have UPFs, convenience foods, takeaways etc but I have genuinely never had one of the tray type ready meals.

Actually, I should amend that to I've never bought one... I've had plane food and hospital food so I'm not under any illusions that there is a dedicated plane chef whipping up fresh meals for everyone 😆

"vs people who don't eat processed foods."

I'd like to see proof of anybody not eating ANY processed foods. UPFs maybe, but avoiding anything processed is almost impossible.

I normally defrost overnight in the fridge then if plans change I'm safe in the knowledge that the food has stayed cold while defrosting and have the next day.

If a casserole/chilli type dish I always reheat in the microwave as I find it's better reheated that way.

When I make Lasagne I always freeze made up in those long foil dishes you can buy then I only need to defrost put a but of grated cheese on the top and oven bake.

I think only one poster, mentioned above that was likely using it, it did stick out a mile and there was a lot of rapid postings which were sort of took over the thread