Which meal is worse?

[AudiobookListener]

A supermarket ready-meal with all real ingredients and no additives OR a meal cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients but everything is fried?

The supermarket meal would be better for you.

It depends what is being fried? a stir fry fried in a small amount of oil would be considered healthy, bacon, egg and a hash brown would be as unhealthy as you can get.

If it's fried in olive oil it'll be pretty healthy.

A supermarket ready-meal with all real ingredients and no additives

Does such a thing exist? I think most meals from Cook meet the criteria but rare from a supermarket.

But it does depend, is the fried meal a piece of oily fish, loads of veg and some olive oil? Loads of nutrition in that, and better nutritionally than say a lasagne or curry ready meal with minimal veg, even without dodgy ingredients added.

I think the term fried is too broad. Deep frying is obviously going to be unhealthy but a piece of fish fried in a little bit of oil or butter is fine and vegetables are no different if they’re stir fried to if they’re roasted in the oven with a drizzle of oil.

Generally I’d prefer cooked from scratch as I like to see what’s in my food but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over the occasional ready meal.

That would depend on what is being fried, and the oil being used. Aubergine, with onions, garlic, and fresh tomatoes, fried in olive oil, would trump a supermarket ready meal, such as the one you describe imo. I am not familiar with ready meals, and did not know that you could get some with no additives in them.

Subsequent events suggest that veggies stir-fried in olive oil with scrambled egg and cheese was way more indigestible than a good-quality supermarket cottage pie!