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

And contains very little nutrition. Carbs with some fruit cooked until the vitamins are gone.

Or I can buy a high class ready meal with protein, 2 of my 5 a day and some flavour that I can pop in the microwave after being out at work since 7am

Yes, yanbu.

Its due to the advanced state of industrialisation, including the food industry.

We've been weaned onto easy, instant calories, and its hard work going back to cooking.

I speak as someone who did various VLCDs and then never restarted cooking. 😔

Do you know the average margin that supermarkets in this country make?

Of course it is and way too unhealthy.

Trust me there aren’t loads of upfs that are guaranteed meat, fish, dairy, nut, seed, kiwi and strawberry free.

@Simonjt there are loads of UPFs out there regardless of whether or not you eat meat or dairy. There are loads of vegan biscuits available. Lots of people think vegans eat junk and some vegans do. I suspect you are more naturally drawn to whole foods and are not so aware of the sheer amount of UPFs.

Whilst food budgets may be tight, it doesn’t stop some having takeaways multiple times a week and yes they can cook and most of them have a reasonable amount of time. The odd night of feeling tired and can’t be bothered to cook has shifted into cooking being the rare event and takeaways being normalised, which for some are multiple times a week. It’s become too easy to get a takeaway delivered without having to move from the sofa other than to answer the door.

It is a big problem in the UK, but its uncreasing everywhere. We don’t eat a lot of processed stuff, I like cooking, but we also have some allergies and we’re dairy free vegetarians, so that rules out a lot of upfs anyway. I think oreos are the only thing really apart from beer and wine.

A lot of the issue is a lack of confidence with cooking, but also poverty, if the food budget is tight you can’t risk buying/making something that the family won’t eat, especially if that meal is fuel heavy.

Strangely I have only one windowsill in my house. It's a Victorian house so I suspect they didn't like windowsill. The one windowsill I have is in the more recently built extension. So growing herbs for me is a challenge indoors. Luckily I have a garden but if people are in flats with my windowsill issue they will struggle.

I think a big challenge with cooking is tiredness. As I said earlier I do largely cook from scratch but I am exhausted so much of the time my menu is limited. I probably have about 6 go to recipes and luckily my family like them. When you are exhausted it's hard to cook. I can cos I used to love cooking so I can do it easily but if I wasn't a confident cook I probably wouldn't.

I have read your post. I think that the amount of ready meals consumed by SOME people could be a problem, but as MILLIONS of people don’t eat them I don’t understand why you choose to use sweeping statements about people in the UK.

A basil plant will produce heaps of leaves. And the leaves can be frozen

It's easy and cheap to grow a lot of herbs (basil, mint, parsley for example) and they can be grown in pots on the window sill if necessary.

Not sure I understand. You find it easy and cheap to produce a delicious plate of pasta with some basil leaves……yet you also buy ready made stuff?

Surely you can answer your own question? Why do YOU do it?

Also curious where you are that fresh herbs are so cheap that people with very limited resources find it cheaper to buy them than a jar of sauce? At the supermarkets in my area a bunch of basil that still needs tomatoes and oil and garlic to make a sauce is more expensive than a jar of pasta sauce.

@FullLondonEye - I know you weren't asking this, but if you do want to do mash for all six of you, you can cook the potatoes in their skins and then use a ricer to make the mash. I found this was a real help, when I was cooking for five of us - three of them teenage boys with hollow legs.

I do think that basic cookery skills need to be taught in schools - it's the one place where you can say that most people will get the same basic instruction. It's not just how to chop veg, or work out how long things take to cook - it's the vocabulary too - what does it mean when a recipe says 'saute' or 'dice', or 'simmer'.

The internet is also a great place for people to learn these - and many other - skills, but school seems to me the best way to reach the greatest number of people.

The food classes at our school were a waste of time. All we ever made was cakes, bread and pizza using a ready made base and jar sauce. We didn't make an actual meal once. I think they should have spent more time teaching us different techniques and how to actually cook food.

I taught myself to cook and now I love cooking. I cook most days and generally the recipes I make take no more than half an hour.

I think it's one of those things where as you learn you get quicker at preparing meals. When you first start cooking it takes longer to chop everything and you have to keep looking at the recipe to make sure you're doing it right. It can take half an hour just to weigh out ingredients and chop them so people think it's a hassle.

A lot of recipes follow similar procedures so once you've made a few things and learned the techniques you don't really need to follow the recipe once you know what's in it. You get quicker at chopping and don't need to weigh everything because you get used to how much you need by sight. Also I only found out on here the other day that you can buy frozen chopped onions which would speed things up even more!

I think the difficulty with families is more finding something that everyone will eat. I have colleagues who make 3 meals a night because of fussy eaters, only doable with ready meals.

OP is getting a lot of abuse here but I agree that Italian food is brilliant for quick meals. It's often very simple and only has a few ingredients. If you want protein it doesn't take much extra time to add chicken or prawns to a tomato pasta.

I don’t think mash is quick either. Boiled, steamed or baked potatoes with their skin on is far quicker and more nutritious.

A household of 6 with different schedules is going to be more challenging than a smaller household, or one with less scheduling.

I think it’s very easy for a lot of people to slip into having takeaways/UPFs more than they have nutritious meals and I know of a number of households who rely on takeaways when they can cook, don’t have scheduling issues and can cook. One of my neighbours is very much like that and sadly the children are at best overweight and unless something changes they are at risk of becoming obese like their parents.

Hmmmm, I’m torn here as yes, salmon, mash and green beans is in theory a quick, simple choice but there are six of us in our house so when you look at peeling, boiling and mashing for six plus prepping veg that’s not exactly a 15 minute job 🤷‍♀️. In theory yes, you can prep by peeling the potatoes in the morning for example but I don’t work set hours and often can’t predict when I’ll be home. Sometimes it does come down to not physically being there with enough time to do that. When I know my schedule I can work around it and build in cooking time earlier in the day in case a last minute appointment comes up, plus quite often I’ll use the slow cooker so there’s something appropriate ready for whenever we need it but for me it comes down to organisation. There are days and whole weeks when working out the logistics of planning, shopping, prepping and cooking for six for every day, all with different schedules, catering to some fussier eaters while making it varied and interesting and keeping everyone happy just takes up more energy than I want to give. If I worked full time I just couldn’t face it.

I suppose the theory would be that we should all have previously (home)made meals available in the freezer to be removed on mornings when you know you’ll be in a hurry but in my case, to cook for example shepherd’s pie for six and make enough to keep some in the freezer for these occasions requires quite a lot of freezer space if nothing else. Ideally I spend a Sunday batch cooking and might make three but again that’s a lot of space, time and equipment to do 18 portions and I simply don’t have the energy or interest all the time 🤷‍♀️.

I mean these aren’t daily/weekly occurrences so I suppose what I’m trying to say is that as long as in general we all aim to eat a varied, healthy and freshly prepared diet most of the time then breaking from that sometimes when you need to isn’t the end of the world. If the ratio switches and you’re at KFC more often than you’re at home for dinner that’s a different matter and unfortunately I think that’s what’s happened in too many houses but I really can see why.

My grandmother had more than six to look after and she did a proper home cooked meal every night but she also didn’t work out of the home, wouldn’t have dreamed of it, and she spread her childbirth over 26 years so the older ones helped out. I’m not saying she had it easier but she most certainly wasn’t bothered by things like homework or after school activities. There was no scheduling conflict to navigate or chauffeuring around to do. She would have children in the kitchen helping after school when mine would be doing homework or at swimming/dance/sewing and other clubs. I live in a completely different world to her.

Our staple food stuffs for decades were potatoes, vegetables and meat, stews in winter and salad in summer. Plus fish and chips on a Friday. Bread has also featured heavily.

I think the issue I have realised is that in other countries ie the global majority people who are poorer have staple foods that are cheap, nutritious, often with minimal meat and from scratch and rarely can they afford to buy ready type meals from supermarkets. Of course there is ready food ie cheap street food but again it’s usually fresh made. What is the staple food of the poorer people in the U.K./USA? There isn’t any really. Hence over reliance on terrible, processed, cheap foods that have little health value sadly.

Probably because the parents themselves didn't know?

I think it is far too easy and cheap to buy processed food. If you don't have much time I can see why it's a good enough option.
I used to eat alot of processed meals as I really can't be bothered cooking but I got alot better since becoming vegan (it's easier to get fresh food rather then faff about reading labels!).
Admittedly I still can't be bothered cooking! Tonight I made a chickpea spread and had it with tons of crudites....literally no cooking involved!

But why did the parents not teach the children to cook??

I learned to cook at a young age, we as kids - under 10 - would be expected to peel and prep veg at the very least. Make pots of tea, and sort out our own breakfasts and packed lunches

First real meal I cooked was the Christmas dinner - for 12 . I was 13

Im not a parent, but I had our SD move in with us at 13, just at the time we were all doing open plan living - or had a kitchen diner.

So she would come in from school and HW was done at the Kitchen table , I would be prepping the meal and helping her, and slowly she got interested in what I was doing and whilst still being the sullen teen who didnt want to be there, she learned loads, which was shown when she started out on her own, and she would be on the phone asking for advice as she learned

Same as I will still get the old faithfuls down if Im not sure about the best way to cook something ( 60 years on this earth and I still check beef timings ) and make use of a meat thermometer

Cooking is easy, baking - that's a different kettle of fish - a science. But Cooking , even if you start at skill level of a boiled egg ( which is hard ) , you can cook

I don’t understand why cooking quick simple meals is not the norm
We plan mostly quick cook low calorie meals - eg last night pork chops and broccoli, another night was chicken fillet with vegetable rice, tonight was salmon, mash and green beans
I steam most veg, grill meat or use microwave for fish so ultra quick and easy

Thank you!

I’ve never done links on MN before but I’ll see if I can do it once I get home. I don’t put a water bath in the oven (I don’t have a suitable tin) so I spray water on top. I also don’t have a razor scorer so use a knife (not been able to find one in shops). I don’t do the baguettes either, just rolls, which is my preference. I have made it into one loaf before and that was fine. It’s absolutely foolproof (it must be if I can do it lol). I just put in oven for 25 mins.

Just in case I can’t link the youtube channel is called Food Language and the episode you want is No Knead Mini Baguettes - Easy Baguette Recipe.

I couldnt agree more. We are also not from the uk but have lived in a few countires across 3 continents and travelled to many more. We often hear friends asking the same questions, and I agree it is more to do with the food culture unfortunately.