To think processed and pre cooked food is way too common in this country?

It's time not money that's short.
Busy both work full time plus kids activities.

Home made lasagne tonight and home made kebabs tomorrow night receipe courtesy of jamie oliver! The rest of the week everything i cook is from scratch. By Friday night I am fed up and usually it's risotto!

No. I buy most of it when on special and have a deep freezer.

I generally cook from scrath, but I work 12.5 hr shifts, sometimes 4 in a row. I havent got the time or energy to cook something if I have been in work since 7am and I dont come home untill 8pm and then have to be up at 5 am the next day for work. Its easier to just take with something I can heat up in a microwave like a ready meal. Otherwise by the time I get home walk my dog shower, cook food for the next day, I wouldnt have anytime to sit down and relax after being in my feet all day.

Do you own a pig farm?

We can't afford all that so our week meals are spaghetti Bolognese with turkey mince, chicken fajitas with chicken thighs, veggie chilli con carne x 2 to save money and time and probably toast for the other days. All low upf although DC have many allergies so we do use some subs or they'd waste away

Earlier last week we had home coated snitzel as I bought a good deal on white mushrooms and the meat a few weeks back on special.

tomorrow night is now going to be home made fettuccine with salmon ian adaption of a Gabriel G dish, but without the asparagus. Our numbers have grown since menu planning a few days ago..

Last night we had steak cooked on the bbq and a big green salad (home grown avocados).

Sunday night home made seafood chowder served with (bought) garlic ciabatta bread.

Saturday night home made sweet and sour pork and steamed jasmine rice.

Friday night chops on the bbq, boiled little spuds (butter/sour cream).

Thursday last week was pork belly slices marinated in home made 5 spice/hoi sin sauce/chilli powder/little oil.

tonight is pork steak on the bbq with large green salad.

wedneday night might be a hogget roast depending if it’s thawed or not. Otherwise Home made quiche and green salad..

you can see we love salads. Sometime we will have a package coleslaw with our preferred mayonnaise too.

One thing I notice here in the UK from is that the Italian brands of ultra processed foods are generally the healthiest and lack the emulsifiers, unknown chemicals and poor quality oils of the British brands.

In UK supermarkets I buy Italian crackers and wraps that are basically just flour, water and salt and pesto that is made using evoo rather than sunflower oil and has just basil and pine nuts.

My family are italian and I grew up in the u.k. You can't compare the two countries and how people cook, it's a cultural difference it's always been this way. Italians live for food and have long discussions about it too! I cook from scratch as my mum did and it's the healthy thing to do. But a lot of people can't do so or don't want to which is fine. Its all a question of whatever makes someone happy and no need to judge. But I have noticed that a lot of young Italians are now choosing easier cooking paths. There are now ready made soups in Italy I notice a lot use. Plus if you shop in an Italian supermarket you can get various meats that are all ready marinated and ready to pop in the oven, they taste delicious! Fresh pasta is also easy to buy in Italy and nothing like the fresh pasta here! So I think people do cheat in Italy but dont let on!

I'm in Melbourne, but apart from my observation comparing a UK supermarket with Australian ones, I couldn't comment on what Aussies eat. Not a clue.

For myself I cook from scratch, though am not pure in that, for example, I use canned beans, not always soaking them.

I’ve just come back from Georgia and was in Japan recently. What both had in common was it was very easy to eat well and healthily and cheaply. Lots of properly cooked food (not a meal pinged in a microwave by someone in a pub) and vegetables.

the fresh produce is cheaper and fresher.

we eat a lot of packaged crap (edited to clarify, there is a lot of it eaten in this country) And while there are obviously people who are time and physically poor,I know people in my own family who are neither, they just don’t know how to cook and don’t want to know.

I think the intention was to give it as an example of something that could be pulled together quickly and more cheaply than a pasta ready meal, or pasta with a jar of sauce which is the sort of thing people are using due to time constraints. The objective was to compare a like for like dish.

However, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how you could ‘beef’ it up to make it more nutritionally balanced but that would not be comparing it against a UPF alternative which people are using and citing that they are short of time.

As it stands it’s not just carb and sauce, it also has protein and lots of micronutrients from the pasta, tomatoes, basil and olive oil, although I don’t believe it was the posters intention to suggest it as a fully balanced meal. Just an example of a dish without UPFs which was quick to make and cheaper than the UPF alternative.

Uk born but not uk resident…. I’ve noticed where we live, the weekly specials continually feature processed meats.

now I acknowledge that supermarkets will discount items under cost price to gain attention from shoppers (im drinking a good quality wine as I write this that was on special well below normal prices) but I can’t see why this doesn’t apply to fresh meat and seafood too.

I wouldn't regard pasta with tomatoes a particularly healthy meal. It's just carb and sauce. It just isn't UPF, but it isn't massively nutritious either.

Believe me when I say families live nearby and shop there. I lived close by for 10+ years before coming to Australia.

Children need protein though and they're unlikely to get it from breakfast alone. School lunches are a 10 mins dash, neither of my DC eat more than a mouthful apparently. They need quite a hearty dinner of an evening as a result (both are underweight as it is!) meat is the best source of protein for us as we can't eat legumes or dairy.

Speaking for my parents and relatives living in Paris it might be

Day 1 - pan-fried fish with lemon and butter, bread, and a salad
Day 2 - a gratin of aubergine and courgettes or a lasagne from their local traiteur, bread
Day 3 - ravioli bought from the supermarket, salad
Day 4 - a roast chicken from the market with potatoes from the base, salad
Day 5 - Vietnamese/chinese from their local traiteur
Day 6 - Paella or a frozen gnocchi or hachis parmentier (fancy cottage pie) from Picard
One day also usually out at a restaurant, a dinner party, apero dinatoire, etc

There are plenty of omlette and salad and a glass of wine, or salad composee, but also plenty of pre-prepared as the kitchen is the size of a postage stamp. It won't be potato smiles from the freezer but a main or side dish from Picard will make an appearance and they have about 5 traiteurs of various cuisines nearby that they can buy dinner from without ever cooking at home at all.

What you won't find is a traybake or a roast dinner, at least at my parents', as the oven is also the microwave which gives you an idea of size.

For the posters not in the UK … what would a typical weeks worth of evening meals be like?

I’m not trying to be confrontational, just interested to see what is prepared over a typical week.

@echt If you were in a busy metropolitan area then Sainsbury's will stock things for workers, visitors and people wanting convenience.

They are not the places to get a family shop.

This made me smile. My upbringing too.

When I went to university in the early 70s I was in uni accommodation for the first year, meals included. My parents, when asking me about the meals, were scandalised that there wasn't a plate of buttered bread on the table at every meal.

I was in the UK a few weeks go, shopping for ingredients for a meal. I went to a big Sainsbury's in a busy metropolitan part of London. I was amazed at the limited range of fresh fruit and veg, and not just because it was the end of the day - the labels on the shelves showed what had been there and it wasn't much. On the other hand the range of ready meals was vast and attractive.

This is in contrast to mainstream supermarkets in Melbourne where the range of fresh produce is very good, often seasonal and mostly Australian. I went to check out the ready meals - still in their infancy here compared to the variety of the UK - but gaining ground. I can remember several years ago a tradie remarking with amazement that such a thing as a ready meal existed; they are that recent here.

I imagine that in years to come the UPFs will increase but hope not at the expense of fresh produce.

Omelettes are very common dinners in parts of southern Europe and take as little time as making beans on toast

This is a good post

You don't need huge amounts of protein in every meal - this is a common misconception!

Eat a wide variety of fresh healthy food and you can easily get plenty of protein without having to resort to expensive ready meals