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! :)

This kind of thing makes me cross.
Having a disability means that I have to rely on ready meals a lot of the time. I go through phases of absolutely hating them, especially the cheaper, sloppier ones, but the more expensive ones can be fine. Nice even. I was brought up on freshly cooked food and used to love to cook so believe me if I had a choice I would do that, but I don't.

I have a few rules that makes it easier. I don't eat any of them that have more than 5% fat, I go for ones that have as few ingredients as possible - so things like Innocent veg pots and Sainsbury's do a nice (but tiny) range of very fresh, healthy ones, with lots of veggies. Not that I can afford them often.

I do try and occasionally make something simple myself like a casserole, and freeze portions. It's just that even the simplest meal requires lifting pots and pans, walking to and fro to get ingredients out and waiting nearby the oven to check things when I'd rather be in bed. It's beyond me. A lot of disabled people have no choice but to eat ready meals because of this. Meals on wheels (to me anyway) seem vile and there isn't the money to pay for people to come in and cook fresh, although recently I've started paying someone to come in for just an hour a week and cook lots of fresh food so I can freeze it and that has lifted my spirits a lot.

So please, if you do have your judgey pants on realise you are very lucky if you can cook from fresh. There are a lot of disabled people who can't (and who want to live on more than basic things like baked potatoes).

I'm studying two OU courses have three children under the age of 6 (two of whom have mild SN) and work voluntarily for the playschool... some days i'm just bloody knackered and want something easy.

I spent 4 years while dd couldn't have wheat having to cook every single meal from scratch (dp doesn't cook) and I'm really enjoying being able to sling some fish in the oven or buy a ready made lasagne now that she can have them again... so shoot me!

I don't buy many ready made sauces (tesco pasta sauces being the exception but i do make my own bolognese) and other than pizza, fish (shite all fresh fish around here), lasagna and filled pasta i don't buy much processed food so i really can't be arsed feeling guilty about one meal a week being less than lentil weavery perfection

I don't have ready meals very often but when I do I don't even use a plate

And the curries and lasagna and usually bloody good too.

Oo they do taste better straight out the plastic don't they Apocalypse?
I do all the cooking here and I use ready meals once or twice a week (normally on my work days) and they are always my fav evenings of the week. I fecking hate cooking.
I am a very unnatural susie homemaker (people BAKE CAKES still - WTF???). I'm only learning to cook for dd. If it were still just dh and I I'd still be doing meals out - takeaways-ready meals all the time. We are both in fine fettle and of ultra healthy bmis for the record.
Anyone who has the time to be judgey pants about ready meals needs a hobby ffs.

YANBU

I wish i had more time to cook and i also wish more ready meals tasted better

they are really handy and in cases like your poor nana, really handy

but still, i wish more ready meals tasted better!

Yes pomm, Mmmmmmm, heated plasssssticcccccccc

The tesco curries are fab, no complaints there.

Well got to the post about baked beans and decided that's what we were having for tea - baked beans on toast! Somedays that's just the thing.

Obviously the people on this thread are not the ones who disparaged the use of the frozen roast potato a couple of week ago.

I cook from scratch and use ready meals when I want to. I don't know the percentage, it doesn't matter anyway. I've not tasted the M&S Beef and Ale pie but can heartily recommend the M&S Beef Casserole which comes with two little dumplings on the top. I nuke it in the microwave (rather than oven bake as it says to), covering it with a layer of frozen peas so that the dumplings don't 'dry out' and it's perfect. :)

I think schools should do more about teaching cooking skills - along with shopping and money management - and then our kids, as adults, will be able to decide for themselves when they'll cook and when they'll have a ready meal.

To the 'down lookers'; how rude you are to judge others.

I'm glad you used the example of your gran OP. Similar to my grandad, he also used ready meals. I'm very glad he did as it enabled him to live in his own house for much longer.

i ate the nicest ready made food I've ever tasted at my sister's house recently - Waitrose thai chicken soup. Its absolutely delicious and if I could afford Waitrose I'd eat it every day for lunch.

With no shame. And I like Lidl lasagne too. So there.

I think I may have just derailed the other thread :) :)

I didn't see this one :)

When we moved house we lived on ready meals for a while. we usually felt quite unhealthy and sluggish. Thankfully all food is now made from scratch and we feel a lot healthier and enjoy our food more.

The trick is to carefully define what a ready meal is. I read through this thread and then remembered than in my pre-children days I used to make garlic bread. I'd forgotten people did that.

Cue beans, curry sauce, pasta sauce, pizza, sausages, mayonnaise, meatballs, the list is long and you will get bored if I go on.

I define a ready meal as a meal in a plastic container I decant onto a plate after heating and eat. It has a role, but not this pay packet sadly.

I feel smug at how generous and thoughtful I am buying these products and enabling others to feel superior to me. And that's before we discuss my lack of ironing.

@ missorinoco

But how could you mention the swear word beginning with 'I'???

Hehehe. I've really done it now. Quick, bring out the bumsex thread before it all goes wrong.

lidl lasagne is very yummy and frozen mash is a boon to me now I am on my own as at first I was throwing out half a bag of potatoe nearly every week,so ready stuff does have a place along side fresh.

Buzzlightbeer
Kraft Cheesey Pasta anyone?
Tis my dirty secret

I had home-made garlic bread with my tesco ready-made pasta. I is a contradiction.

lol@ missorinoco (see, name-check remembered!)

Yanbu there are somethings ready made better than home made and easier. I have no problem with making spinach and ricotta cannelloni, but find meat cannelloni a pita! As long as you don't live on them what's the harm? Also I think people forget quiches, pies with puff pastry, fish fingers, breaded fish in a box, oven chips are all ready meals in a way.

I love cooking, have the time, and do cook mostly from scratch. But not always. Some stuff is better ( eg Waitrose Indian takeaway ) than I can cook, some is more imaginative, using ingreds I wouldn't normally have in and good for one person only ( Innocent vegpots)and tbh, sometimes there's a really good offer on and its a treat ( eg Marks and Sparks Eat In offers ).

Arse to it all, everything in moderation I say. And what other people choose to eat is never going to keep me awake at night.

The only thing I would refuse to use is gravy granules

Some foods are better store bought ie ketchup, baked beans . We make our own pastry and that takes care of pies, quiches and the like

Hmmm interesting thread.

I'm quite a snob when it comes to food, and while I don't rule out all ready made food, I tend to avoid some of it. That isn't a criticism for those of you that don't avoid it.

I enjoy cooking from scratch. My dh is into training so he needs a balanced diet of vegetables and protein, and tbh there doesn't look like there is enough in the microwave packs to fill him up.

I do however, buy microwave rice (the family bag) as I just CANNOT cook it .

My ds is 10 months and I tend to blend up most of what we eat to give him the next day, this probably wouldn't work if I ate microwave meals, as I can't control the sodium levels.

I'm all for moderation and I think a little bit of what you fancy won't do you the world of harm.

My dh likes the Tesco finest meal for 2 for £10. While it's nothing I can't cook for myself (rice excluded of course) it means he gets to "cook"-which apart from garlic mash and sea bass, he usually cannot.

I must say I have a hatred of processed food. Things like frozen pizzas/fish fingers etc, I personally wouldn't feed that to my family, unless of course everywhere was shut and we ate in a place like Pizza Express, but I wouldn't criticise those that do. My best friend's son has probably never seen a fresh vegetable.

"I don't but ready meals, they're too expensive ans shite."

That's a bit of a sweeping statement and a little on the smug side isn't it? How do you know? Have you tasted every ready meal you can buy? Some of the M & S ones are pretty good. I buy M & S sushi because to make sushi properly is a right old fiddle. (I do make sushi at home occasionally, but I need plenty of time).

YANBU. Many ready meals are nutritious and taste nice.

OP YANBU. We have moved on a lot from the 70s-80s in our attitudes to ready made meals. My mum worked hard and was delighted when M&S started preparing ready meals and in our household they were viewed as a lovely treat, she did a lot of cooking as well. Her view is that if M&S can make it better then why bother yourself ( I would say however to the poster who has never made lasagne that I have never found a decent ready made lasagne, if you want to have a really nice one without much faff use Dolmio sauces to add to the mince and veg and their lasagne white sauce in between)

Now it seems that in addition to working, spending lots of quality time interacting with our children and knitting their clothes and christmas presents we are also expected to cook everything from scratch or we are lazy slatterns.