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

You’re not wrong but you did disclose you’re a foreigner so expect your opinion to be invalidated.

The issue is the food culture combined with lack of affordable good quality fresh ingredients. But even so, mid quality fresh ingredients are far better than a pot ramen with nuggets.
It also can’t be about lacking time because broadly speaking people finish school and work earlier, not to mention a good percentage of parents working PT.

It’s easy to whip up a one pot chicken pasta, beef pasta, fish rice, etc.

No, it wasn’t childish. It was illustrating a point.
I didn’t use the word ‘cultural’ so I’m not sure why you’ve given me that nice, yet obvious, platitude but thank you!

You probably need to view British (English?) food culture in the context of industrialization (and post-industrialization) too. Also differences in climate (growing food) and land ownership - the latter also related to industrialization. Climate has also resulted in a different rhythm of daily life - including during the winter. This conditions cultures of consumption too.

Ah, Scotland, the home of the deep fried mars bar!

When I went to Edin uni, fresh stuff was really poor there, vegetables, salad and fruit would last a day or two, max. I hope it's improved?

Okay, that's fine.
But you would be saying something about her country purely as a childish response, not for any other reason. Your post says far more about you than it does about me, I think.
The word cultural doesn't only relate to geographical borders.

And don't forget 'batch cooking'. Preferably of organic banana bread and sweet potato goulash.

I am a veggie and there are very few nice tasting ready meals that are vegetarian so I don't buy them very often as although they seem a good idea now and then I always regret them as taste pants!

But, they serve a purpose for many people. I think a lot of people who live alone and esp elderly (My father in law ate only TV dinners when his wife died as couldn't be bothered to cook for one) buy them. My partner buys them a lot at the mo, as he's living in his late dads house sorting out his affairs and again, too lazy to cook from scratch every night.

I lived in a small town just outside Munich, Germany for ten years, and the type of pre prepared food we have in the UK was not available there. Supermarkets are tiny and are mostly cheese, chocolate, beer/wine, vegetables and meats (fresh and preserved). Packaged food is dried pasta in sauce or tinned fish, pickled vegetables. A few frozen pizzas. No ready meals in trays or huge banks of freezers full of prepared items.

Like most other people in the town we shopped at the market twice a week for meat and vegetables (and pottery and crafts - bliss!)

People still ate their main hot meal of the day in the work or school canteen and ate bread, cheese, ham etc at home or went to a restaurant. No breakfast cereal but plenty of coffee, cakes and pastries from the bakeries.

There was a fancy department store in my town that had an ‘American’ section. They were charging €15 for a 500g box of CoCo Pops.

It is a fact that there is a lot more prepared food available here (Scotland), and a lot more ‘treat’ and ‘junk’ food, especially crisps and pop. I have no opinion about its availability or whether people choose to consume it.

There are a large number of food additives which since Brexit have been banned in the EU but are now allowed in the UK including:

Azodicarbonamide (ADA)
Commonly used as a dough conditioner in baking, azodicarbonamide is banned in the EU due to health concerns, including potential links to respiratory issues and cancer. However, it remains authorized in the UK, leading to its presence in some baked goods.

Potassium Bromate
This additive is used to strengthen dough and improve bread texture. The EU has banned its use because of its carcinogenic potential. In contrast, the UK continues to permit its use in food products.

Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA)
BHA is used as a preservative in various food products. While banned in the EU due to concerns over its potential as a carcinogen, it is still allowed in the UK.

Sunset Yellow FCF (E110)
A synthetic food colorant associated with hyperactivity in children, Sunset Yellow FCF is banned in the EU. However, it remains authorized in the UK, though products containing it must carry a warning label.

Permitted residue levels for many items are now higher in Great Britain than under the EU regime.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/19/revealed-far-higher-pesticide-residues-allowed-on-food-since-brexit?utm_source=chatgpt.com

I agree. This is a result of government policy in the 80s, though, when Thatcher was PM. She altered the domestic science curriculum, which had actually taught cookery, to an 'industry based' and 'job orientated' thing called food science, which involved very little cookery but a lot of stuff about marketing. This seems to have been both ideology driven - she thought education should be teloelogical - but also industry orientated. There was encouragement to eat ready meals and processed food - convenient for 'busy mums', who were being pushed into the work force. And here we are.

Of course. But look at the listed ingredients in UK-sold stock cubes vs French-sold and you’ll see what I mean. There’s a LOT more bulking agents, chemicals, emulsifiers and flavourings in UK versions, because they make the item cheaper to produce.

There is a lot of moral panic about food and what other people eat

there is also a lot of faux-naivety from the OP

i totally understand why more people eat ready meals now, the world is changing and not many families have a stay at home parent who lovingly cooks up a home cooked meal that is on the table by 6 (to make sure kids are ready for their evenings activities in time)

the only reason I do not eat a lot of ready meals is that I find the portions very small and most of it is not that nice in my opinion. Charlie Bighsns is nice but I would eat a portion for 2 on my own easily (this may trigger more pearl clutching I am sure, so will add in that I am a healthy weight)

the only reason we never get food delivered is cost and the fact we are too rural for food deliveries

but I totally get why anyone would if they can afford it

cooking fresh food every day is a chore and requires time and headspace that not everyone has

Yep it's often cheaper to grab a ready meal.
We do buy cooked ham and salamis (also common in Europe) and sliced bread (not so common).
But I have to be gf and have found that stops us being too high in upfs as most things contain wheat as a bulking agent.

I also think culture is very different sliced bread that lasts a week has been common in the UK for at least 40 years compared to going to the bakery each day for bread

Generally, in my house, we have on average five cooked from scratch meals (simple meals, nothing elaborate, e.g. chicken breast and new potatoes) and two ready-meal dinners, e.g. a bought curry with our own rice, a week. DH is retired so has time to do this. I work full time so if it was just me the ratio would probably be the other way round. Eat out about once every three months. Very seldom have a takeaway as most of them upset my stomach nowadays.

Absolutely not true, have you seen the additives in supermarket white bread?

I agree OP. Huge reliance on processed food and for many, nutrition just isn't considered an important factor to make time for.

AA Gill (of all people) had a great article about British food culture and how it was more decimated after the world wars than the food cultures of other countries.

Which then left it a sitting duck to be further destroyed by the convenience food culture of the 1970s.

Food Ed in schools has been crap forever. I'm in my fifties and the only useful thing I took away from those lessons was, pastry is half fat to flour plus water. I've used that formula to make pastry out of various ingredients all my adult life.
None of my kids learned anything about cooking in school and nutrition was so science based.

Come on! We had all kinds of crap in our foods before Brexit. We had obesity and heart conditions on the rise in the 00s long before Brexit was a twinke in Farage's eye.

Thays true, but nowadays if there's anything you don't understand or don't know how to do, google it and you'll find a video showing you.

Completely agree with you OP. Leaving the EU has also meant we skip a lot of regulations so we have a lot more emulsifiers and general shit in our food. Far fewer people grow veg here too.

It’s sad as well as lazy. The only people who benefit are the supermarkets and packaged food companies.

Supermarkets! It's the pattern.

Big supermarkets muscle in, initially offer cheap goods, good ranges etc. to force out the smaller competitors.

Then when they're established, the prices creap up, the ranges reduce and they end up full of imported or processed crap.

It's exactly what has happened in the UK over the 90s and 00s' and now the rest of Europe is seeing it.

When I started going on foreign holidays in the 80s, you bought your food from local/small shops, markets, stalls, etc. In the 00s', on our foreign holidays, we started to see the creep of smaller supermarkets, like Spar, etc. Now, there are loads of big supermarkets and you struggle to find local/small shops/stalls, etc.

It used to really "feel" different to UK when going to places like Spain or Italy in the 80s. Now you may as well be in the UK, with the only difference being the weather.

That's just total nonsense though.

Carbs, vegetables, quality oil, a bit of cheese - all relatively unleaded around with - that's far better than a huge amount of what people are eating

Because it’s literally Brit bashing?
Sadly, lots of Brit bashing is done by Brits so I don’t think your post is the ‘gotcha’ that you think.
The fact you describe the prospect of me saying something negative about another country as ‘xenophobic’ but yet you’re happy to have yet another thread bashing the U.K. is just another example of Brit bashing.

I think part of the problem is we’re on about the third generation of people who never learned to cook at school and didn’t have those skills to pass on. I’m sure it’s quite intimidating to get started if nobody has ever shown you the basics. I remember watching Jamie Oliver on telly talking to a group of women who didn’t know what ‘simmering’ meant. If you’ve never been shown, how would you know?