to think that people have no right to be smug about being somehow "above" ready meals?

[frgr]

I hesitated to post this, but I'm not sure if I'm being unreasonable to get irked by people who smugly declare that they never buy ready meals. I am, of course, referring to another thread which I didn't want to derail, in which some posters are hinting that anyone who has eaten a ready meal with contaminated egg sort of deserves it for eating shite.

I don't eat a bad diet, due to finances I quite enjoy making soups and meals from scratch to bulk out in the week, but I do think there is a place, nay a NEED, for ready meals.

My nan can't mash potatoes due to weak wrists, I've heard a friend commenting "who'd buy that mashed up shite anyway", it allows her to easily eat mashed potato at a small premium, and she doesn't have to lift bags of spuds.

When I was ill in hospital after DCs, I couldn't drive to a takeaway, we live outside decent deliveries, and ready meals solved a problem of having an exhausted DH and me being too weak to make anything.

There is a space for ready meals as part of a wider, healthy diet. And I don't think i'm being unreasonable to think this. Any blanket statements about people being smug about not "eating shite" is being quite narrow minded. So there! :)

YANBU. I firmly believe any food is fine in moderation. Sometimes you just NEED some crappy junk food! Or is that just me :o

We mostly cook from scratch, but during a particularly stressful time due to illness, or when we were snowed in, they fulfilled a purpose.

Of course that stuff is bad if you eat it every day but I don't feel the need to turn my nose up at it.

With our last food delivery they accidentally gave us pizza fingers and fish fingers which we had not ordered, or paid for, but they aren't allowed to come back and pick up food in that situation (have got many freebies due to their disorganisation!) so we kept them.

Last night DH and I weren't hungry (unwell) and DCs needed dinner, so pizza fingers and FROZEN mixed veg in the microwave, job done.

I don't think ready meals should be avoided like the plague, but I think eating them several times a week would be unhealthy and hugely expensive. Now and again for convenience is nothing to be ashamed of though. I looooove Tesco Finests mashed potatoes.

But whats with all the justifying and explainig here? NOBODY CARES, except judgy smuggingtons like the moronposter who suggested imprisonment.

I think she was joking Buzz.

I have ready meals probably once or twice weekly

dd2 is 10 weeks, and will not be put down. i am not juggling pans with her in the sling. I batch-cook when DH is off, so we have home cooked food most of the time.

I love cooking, and spend a lot of time on it, but still think that ready meals have a place.
I was seriously ill twice last year and ready meals were great for DD then, or things such as cold meat and cheese and bagged salads/bottled dressings.
I always have fishfingers in the freezer and a pizza for can't be arsed nights, as well as home frozen stuff.
Bloody hell, we can't all be perfect all the time.
We also have takeaway most Saturday nights.

My Dad has lots of ready meals, but he's 86 and doesn't want to cook just for himself every night, though he is perfectly capable and cooked a turkey dinner and all the trimmings from scratch for himself and 4 of his friends on Boxing Day.

YANBU, you have to be quite hardcore to never use a jarred sauce or readymade pie/pizza. Mainly I don't get "box" meals because we'd need to get at least 2 for DH and then the rest of us, it would cost a fortune.

We cook quite a lot from scratch but most weeks 1 or 2 meals are out of the freezer/storecupboard.

My life is too short (as it were) to make pastry.

I'm disabled and i cant/ need help to cook but i still cant stomach ready meals ( apart from fresh pizza, not sure if that counts (confused)). My mum made everything 100% from scratch ie no stock cubes, bisto, jars,packets, tins, anything so ive never aquired a taste for it. Even the finest/ ms stuff just seems like sloppy goo to me. So if ive no one to cook for me i just live off plain food eg bread, toasties, baked potatoes, cheese, eggs, beans etc. I dont mind repetition and its much healthier than ready meals.

I don't believe there are people who never use anything ready made. I just don't.

What a stupid thing to be smug about. Ready meals can be part of a balanced diet. It's all about the balance.

Im a nutritionist and have occasionally used ready meals.

I sometimes indulge in specifically gluteny ready meals - DH is a coeliac and so normally we have rice/spuds, it's nice to have the odd treat like pastry stuff - it's just not worth making from scratch for just me, and many gluten free alternatives are shit.

We do object to how much DH's exW gives their DCs though, they have ready meals most of the week, so definitely not in moderation.

When people say 'ready meals' do they mean a pre prepared dinner that only has to be micro waved or do they include things like jars of sauce, ready made mayonnaise and frozen vegetables??

It was only last week I came home late from work and bought a sainsbury prawn chilli linguine. My god, i enjoyed it.

Love an M&S ready meal, perfect when you are trying to exercise portion control too YANBU

Microwave curry is a great hangover cure.

Earthakitten - HERE HERE :) couldn't agree with you more

Best mashed potatoes ever - bake your tatties, scoup out the tattie from the skin, add a bit of butter and cream and yummy.

No peeling,
No lumps in your tatties.

If it where not for ready meals my dh would have to put up with my cooking every day which would surely have led to divorce (remembers the spag bol with added tuna cooked in a slow cooker as one of my not so good experiments).

I hate this too, there are times when you don't have time or simply can't be bothered to make a meal from scratch.

Meantosay - I assume it to mean microwave stuff and jars of sauce, rather than Mayo etc.

However frozen veg can actually be HEALTHIER than fresh - because it's frozen it keeps nutrients in apparently.

I even give my 2 eldest kids pot noddles - I am going to hell - via prison obviously!

I make soup and can russle up a mean roast or Macaroni cheese (wholemeal pasta) but I also have a freezer full of chicken nuggets and Pizza

I don't look up to people who cook everything from scratch - I don't look down on people who don't

Everything in moderation. I love cooking my own food but equally I'll slam a frozen pizza in the oven if I don't have the time.

I agree with Gordy about not looking up to people or down on them.

I have to say though it does make me laugh when people consider slamming the oven door on frozen chips and pizza as 'cooking' lol

not keen on the microwave readymeals myself tbh, but that's not to say that I would ever judge someone who actually likes eating them. Or can't cook for whatever reason.

I try to cook from scratch where I can but do use short cuts from time to time, and not ashamed to admit it! pasta sauces are very convenient when you can't be arsed to cook, and if you add a few fresh veggies, I don't think there's anything awful about them. But mostly I batch cook and stick stuff in the freezer so that there is always something nutritious available when I really can't be bothered!

When we were renovating out house and only had a microwave to cook with, readymeals were a lifesaver. They aren't great, but when needs must, they are easy and cheaper than takeaway.

I rely a lot on 'convenience' stuff like readymade pasta sauce at the moment, simply because I am severely under the kosh with work and stuidy and do NOT have time to do the homemade thing. I would rather eggs on toast than a readymeal, though.