Is it still good home cooked food if you use a jar?

[Hsundbfhdi]

We've had a pretty rubbish day here, I'm heavily pregnant and feeling rough and my husband is working crazy hours. Our childcare fell through so we've been trying to juggle a toddler too.

It's time to get dinner ready and I've popped open a jar of honey and mustard chicken tonight. Poured it over some chicken thighs. Will make pasta and peas to go with it.

Curious to know where people stand on how unhealthy it is to use jars? I've never really cared before, but now we've got a little one, I'm more conscious of the food I'm making. Growing up, my mum would use jars quite regularly e.g dolmio, curry, chicken tonight etc she'd also make amazing Mediterranean food from scratch too. It was a real mix.

Anyway, would you still consider this a healthy, home cooked meal? Do you think it's still better than a takeaway (I do)? I've started trying to make my own sauces when I've got time, but my husband and I both work full time, long hours, and trying to get something together after work and before baby bedtime is a real mission! So I'm still partial to a jar here and there.

Just curious for thoughts.

You cooked it at home = it's a home cooked meal (albeit a very simple one)

Of course.
Only on mn do you have to raise the chicken yourself.

For example @Ottervision, both of these wraps have the natural product wheat in them, but one is a UPF. The fact that the Sainsbury's product has wheat in it doesn't change the fact that it's a UPF.

Crosta and Mollica wraps: Italian Reground Durum Wheat Flour (67%), Water, Extra Virgin Olive Oil (8%), Salt

Sainsbury's wraps: * Fortified British Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin), Water, Palm Oil, Humectant: Glycerol; Raising Agents: Disodium Diphosphate, Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate; Sugar, Acidity Regulator: Citric Acid; Emulsifier: Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids; Preservative: Calcium Propionate; Salt, Wheat* Starch, Flour Treatment Agent: L-Cysteine.

They're not lol. The individual things in them are classed as upf or not. You can't blanket call things upf because that would be insane wouldn't it?

Individual foods are either upf or they're not. When you put a upf with a none upf it doesn't somehow infect it with its upfness.

Yes I'm well aware of how food works but a wrap isn't comparable to ops meal.

A wrap is upf. Ops chicken is not s upf.

Ok, if chicken with a UPF sauce is not a UPF , is a ready meal with chicken and a UPF sauce not a UPF?

I know which answer doesn't make me sound like an idiot.

....

In both situations, the item that is a upf is a upf. The item that isn't, isn't. The upf doesn't contaminate the none upf.

A "ready meal" isn't a food. It's a combination of foods. Some of them may be upfs some may not be.

OFGS - that's irrelevant because no-one eats just the UPF ingredient! The whole point is that it's added to convenience food. Sometimes that's already done for you, sometimes you do it yourself at home.

Once the UPF ingredient is added to the other ingredients, the dish becomes a UPF, whether the physical act of adding is done at home or in a factory.

Because there's no option to, what, separate the UPF ingredient with your tongue? Blow on it and the UPF ingredient disperses?

Your logic is really weird.

You want to gamble? I’d rather not.

Oh yes, believing science, totally silly.

You gamble if you want, I’d rather not.

You cooked it at home so yes, I'd say it's a home cooked meal 😉

I don't think you get it.

What I'm saying is adding a upf to something doesn't negate the nutritional value of the rest of the food.

In your unusual view the "meal" is a upf but the chicken, pasta, peas themselves remain very much not upfs. The sauce is the only upf. The chicken, peas, pasta do not become upfs just because you're eating it in the same mouthful. You're only eating idk 15% upf of the full meal or whatever it equates to.

Happily. The same way I "gamble" by enjoying sunshine, drinking the occasional diet coke, looking at screens etc.

In my mind as long as you used the hob or oven it is home cooked. Microwave is just heating some up. Airfryer is could be either of both.

Luckily for me I make my own bread. Bread maker, 5 mins max a day.

I don’t follow any ‘diet’. I eat what I cook from all around the world. I eat more lentils, pulses, beans, and veg than most I expect. Variety and a rainbow of colours is about my only guidance. I eat cakes and biscuits, but I make them. I still use HP sauce as the world would be rubbish without it, but I tend not to buy many pre-made things. I’m not obsessed, but I genuinely think that our diet is a 50 year experiment. I’d rather not take part.

Chris VT is not the only doctor switched on to this, but he’s the first to go mainstream.

I'm sure if you really are genuinely interested in learning how to make home made pasta a quick Google will give you all the information you need. You will get recipes along with step by step how to videos.

Jesus, they’ve had you raising you own chicken and slaughtering. It’s fine love yes get some veg in them but don’t worry.

I do get it.

i understand that by your logic, your standard ready meal containing ‘monodiglycerides of fatty acids’ could not be described as a UPF.

Which ofc most normal people without an ideological stance on this would describe it as.

No, you don't get it. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying a "meal" is not a "food". The foods within that meal absolutely can be upf. It doesn't make all the rest of the food in that meal upf. There's nothing idealogical about it it's common sense.

I'm not fussed about UPF (I eat supermarket pizza once a week) but don't use jar sauce only as I never have done!
A quick one is creme fraiche as the base, honey, mustard, lemon, heat and stir
Some of the fresh sauces are decent, near the pasta in the fridge section and there's some good organic jar sauces

I've skipped about 10 pages of UPF arguments here, so apologies if I'm repeating someone.

I'm not a food purist, I don't judge and I bloody love a Big Mac.

But ready made sauces/dips/meals just taste rubbish. You could have something that tastes great (without all the additives) on the table in 15 /20 minutes, or less.

I love food and I'm a very good cook, some days are for spending hours in the kitchen, some you just want minutes. We had quick food tonight, made a salsa Verde in the pestle and mortar, 5 minutes tops, pan-fried some hake, steamed green beans and a green salad (always have a jar of home-made vinegarette on the go). Took about 15 minutes from start to finish.

I had brie with some of the green salad after, the teens and husband had sourdough with brie after.

I do accept that it's probably not a cheap way to eat, quick good food is often the most expensive but you could just as easily make a beetroot salad and serve it with smoked mackerel and a mustard dressing, cheap and easy.

I like food. I'm really into food. I'm not a dick about it though!

Quite happy to give my 'quick, cheap, nutritious' ideas of you like.

I think you're blurring the lines with your ready meal comparison because you don't know how the rest of the ingredients within the meal have been prepared, you only have the ingredients listed within the 'meal', but you can't know at which stage of the process they are added and to what.. you only know the end result. Chances are the chicken and vegetables have also been treated/prepared in such a way as to contain artificial flavours, emulsifiers, colouring and sweeteners themselves, which would then make them UPFs in themselves, it is not at all comparable to a home cooked meal with one UPF ingredient added, as it just isn't the same at all.

I suppose you could call that home cooked meal with a UPF ingredient a UPF 'meal' but only a pedant would make that distinction, anyone else with a ounce of common sense would say that it is meal with a UPF ingredient, not a UPF 'meal'.

UPF basically means that you can't recreate it at home with ingredients off your shelf. Chicken and vegetables prepared and cooked at home are not UPF and will not turn into one when coated with a sauce.. only the sauce is classed as UPF.

Yes that's a good point. You put it more eloquently than me.

@Ottervision, I see what you're saying, but if I drink a pint of vodka with an egg in it, is that good because an egg is nutritious? Or bad because a pint of vodka isn't great for the body?

Better to eat the egg without the vodka surely?

I mean it's both good because of the egg but "bad" because of the vodka but I'm a moderation person so I don't have "bad" foods etc.

In an ideal world yes you'd just have the egg but sometimes you just want the vodka and that's fine too imo.