to think good quality ready meals are quite healthy?

My only comment would be to be wary of things labelled "healthy" is often it's misleading. A meal might be low fat, but will be higher in sugar and salt to make up for the lost flavour.

Other than OP, I would focus on meals you enjoy.

For the length of time you need to microwave some of these ready meals you can have a super healthy stir fry.

You could buy ready prepped veg, a packet of sauce and some chicken strips/ prawns /beef and stir fry. 9 min start to finish.

I like to do prawns with stir fry veg and make my own sauce with lemon or lime juice, olive oil and cumin. Stir in some soft noodles and enjoy. Alternatively eat with crusty bread.

Or as pp, air fryer.

Ready meals are a good first step to regular meals in the first instance though. Especially if you’ve not been eating regular meals. Baby steps.
Nutritionally, check the ingredients for salt/ sugar / preservatives and saturated/ trans fats.

They are not the worse but be careful of heating plastic, I was advised by a dietician to take the food out of plastic and heat up on normal plate. Heated plastic can effect hormones.

When I was struggling to eat I found pots of hummus with veg sticks or breadsticks a quick and easy way to get some calories in me, OP, if you need some extra ideas alongside the meals.

I wonder If they taste a bit "hospital food" ?

I can guarantee that you won't find "Lentil Protein Preparation" (Water, Rapeseed Oil, Coconut Oil, Lentil Protein, Sugar, Modified Potato Starch, Stabiliser: E461, Emulsifier: E435, Acidity Regulator: E331, Flavourings, Salt, Stabiliser: Xanthan Gum, Colour: Carotenes) classed as "normal ingredients" by most people.

What's wrong with using whole unprocessed lentils?

Taken from the M&S meal linked above

Yes, it is a pity, @Mrsjayy! They're getting fed, which is the main thing - but they cost the same as Cook, M&S, etc.

Is it not nice that's a Shame they always look fine in the adverts . My poor neighbour their family organised it so it was easy for the carers.

Most of Wiltshire Farm Foods are horrid. In their favour, they are made of real food - but the flavour & texture are 'institutional' and I think the portion sizes are small. They sell hard to old people because they think we don't know how to order from supermarkets and our taste buds are shot to pieces 😅

My neighbours get Wiltshire farm delivered we are way outside London .

If ready meals are what work for you, then do that and get use to eating again. Maybe the next step is try different ones and then add veggies or salad. I think that's what I would do it's better to not pressure yourself x

Here are my easy and fairly healthy go tos. They are cheap as well and maybe something you could try now or work towards if they appeal to you.

Frozen jacket potatoes and beans. Nothing goes off and you always have it in. The timings are on the packet so you can't fo wrong

Quiches with salad and jacket potatoes. Very simple as you don't have any chopping and bar the salad you can freeze them. There are single portion Quiches too. Fish portions can also be microwaved or you could have eggs. So quick again.

Egg on toast has lots of protein as does omelette and you can pack in veg and add sauces to dip it in. Eggy bread/French toast is also good.

Another easy one is Egg fried rice. Get chopped frozen onion and garlic, fry them and add egg and a pack of microwave rice. Again it doesn't go off. Jazz it up with sesame oil and soy sauce. Add any veg to it, literally any veg and it will taste nice.

Stir fries from the supermarket are also an easy one and make 2 meals

Some of the frozen cheaper ready meals can be good as they are frozen they don't need preservatives. I've also noticed that some frozen pizzas don't appear to have UPF in

My understanding of UPF is that it's about how much of your diet it makes up as that is what gets talked about. Therefore if you balance it out with some fresh foods or less processed ones you're OK

And this post is helpful to someone with an eating disorder how, exactly? OP needs to find ways to just eat something and not obsess about what's in it. Your post does the opposite.

I didn't think it was the ingredients that made ready meals bad, but rather the high salt content? I think as long as people keep an eye on their salt in take ready meals are fine.

Not at all. She just wanted my system to get used to a variety of foods, and said any ready meals would do.
Good luck.xx

Cook also do some child size portion meals so if you are struggling with eating some of those might also be a good idea. When I don't have much appetite I sometimes have one of these and just do some extra veg with them. Personally I use Cook ready meals - definitely better than a lot of the M&S ready meals

A dietician advised me to have a ready meal a day so that I would get variety and some nutrients. (Autistic). So, no they're not that bad at all.

But many people (not necessarily you) would have potato with tuna mayo and think that is better than a ready meal, but the mayo is mostly highly processed rapeseed oil. And if you want to be very pedantic (which I always do), the tuna contains mercury. Or they’d have baked beans which are full of sugar.

Bread is very highly processed and full of salt. Sliced ham, even good quality ham, contains sodium nitrites (although don’t eat ham or bacon without these if you don’t want food poisoning - I speak from experience).

Start small until you are used to eating regularly
Cut up fruit, crackers and cheese, Greek yogurt,( my standby)
Things like tzatziki with cucumber and cherry tomatoes is light and fresh

?

I'm assuming your eating disorder is "thinking for you" it must be exhausting.

Your body needs food to function I hope you manage to find a balance.