To think that we don't actually need to eat "a hot meal" every day?

[Machli]

Dd and I both prefer cold food, salads, fruit, sandwiches. Most days dd eats 8 plus portions of fruit and veg a day. I am not so well nourished .

It seems that many don't feel it's a proper meal unless its a big cooked, hot one. I quite often see "kids need a hot meal" or "I always make sure there's one hot meal a day, cooked from scratch" on here.

A lot of food that needs to be cooked, pasta, rice etc hold minimal nutrients and usually cooking processes destroy or diminish nutrients also. Understand that meat and fish need to be cooked to make it safe and palatable to eat, but I just don't understand why it's so necessary to provide a hot meal daily.

What is the reasoning behind The Hot Meal?

It's for pleasure.
A proper cooked meal eaten around the table with family and chat.
Salads and worthy stuff may be nutritious but are not meals.

Why is a salad not a meal? You can eat salad around the table too.

I am forrin and all my meals have to be hot. Sandwich does not fill my tummy or my DH jewish tummy (he is English). Sandwiches are for breakfast according to us and I've got coeliac, and I bake my own bread.

Well I am Indian and in India they eat 3 hot meals all year round! Yes, even in the burning summer months. We don't particularly have any cold recipes like salads or sandwiches in Indian cuisine. However cool yogurt will be served with most meals.

I have been born here and used to have school dinners. I remember telling my two friends once that I would also had a cooked meal for tea. They were shocked! They said they only ate sandwiches in the evening if they had eaten a hot school dinner.

I wonder if it is kind of a genetic thing though, as cold food makes me feel ill. If I eat a sandwich or salad I have to have a hot drink with it otherwise I feel sick. I can't eat ice cream in winter at all - I just feel much better after eating warm food esp in cold weather

It's so not about being worthy. Is a table of salads, fruit, olives, meats, cheeses and breads not as social and enjoyable as a big pot of pasta?

I love a hot meal in winter but in warmer months I am more than happy with salads.

DD (5) seems to always prefer uncooked food - many nights she just wants "cold things" for dinner, which gets a bit dull.

Thinking about it, I'd say my favourite type of meal is a compromise between cold and hot - for example some grilled goats cheese on toast, with a dressed salad.

Cold stuff makes me think of leftovers.

Salad (with cheese and pasta - so not particularly healthy) is one of my favourite meals, and I eat it year round

Year-round salad twice a day here. I am on my tod so I can't be arsed with cooking beyond batch-cooking large amounts of lean meat (chicken or beef) to go in salads throughout the week. Variety through salmon or tuna (open tin: done) and with cottage cheese and lovely dressings and additional veg like tomatoes, peppers, sweet potato, jalapenos, pine nuts... Never have the same bowlful twice.

I'm just always starving when I get in. Why wait 30 mins just to cook something?? This is why I was fat when I was younger. i would get home, STARVING, and mum would serve dinner sometimes several hours later, after which I would have demolished a load of unhealthy snacks. Now it's all about the get in > eat immediately model.

I don't have a dishwasher... if being in a relationship means washing up pots and pans after cooking a 'proper' meal for us both, then you can shove a relationship. Nyer.

This all goes out of the window if I have people over to entertain. Then I turn into a massive Come Dine With Me uber-host and produce wildly extravagant cooked multi-course dinners. That's the only time when it's fun.

I've just brought three bottles of Wishbone chunky blue cheese dressing and a bottle of buttermilk ranch back from the US. When I dream of food it's big crisp salads with lovely dressing .

I think some people can be very odd about food. List provided by bloke I used to be married to.

Meal is not meal unless it contains....

Meat ( just not chicken as I was poor and that was the only meat we had so bored of it now)

Potatoes in some form ( just not baked or mashed or boiled because they are boring)

Traditional sauce that goes with meat ( don't get excited we are not talking recurrent jelly just bog standered apple sauce bread sauce mint sauce mild horseradish)

A meal cannot be a meal if it contains

Rice or other grain
Pasta
Tuna
Fish ( unless its battered cod)
Seafood
Salad
Bread
Soup
Noodle
Anything cold
Anything forrin ( said just like that) unless its Chinese takeaway and then only pork balls.

Any meal containing any of the above will either be refused or called a snack.

Try menu planning with that list.

Well yes I guess we don't NEED a hot meal.
What about he variety though. Steak, asparagus, minted new potatoes?
Chilli and curry? Roast? Casserole with dumplings?
Leafy greens and broccoli, roasted parnsips. Fajitas and quesadilla's?
Three are so many good 'meals' to eat.

sausages and mash , with peas and gravy.
Toad in the hole. Paella. Beef wellington. Leg of lamb. pork with crackling.
Must dash , off to scoff some more grub.
back in a minute.

For years my retired parents lived on sandwiches, bowls of cereals & meals out. They are on a healthfood kick now (diagnosis of pre-diabetic), so now they're on low-carb versions of cold food diet.

I would feel very sad without at least one nice meal a day. I like food.

I have (hot) soup for lunch and a cooked meal every evening, all washed down with a cup of hot green tea. I cannot bear salad. And sandwiches are for picnics.

I'd hate to eat bowls of cereal instead of proper food.

No, we don't need hot meals and we don't need to cook.

It's nice for children, I think, if they don't have to follow their parents' very narrow idea of what constitutes healthy or pleasurable eating.

YANBU. This is of must have hot meals and roasts is very British.

And I don't get this 'too hot to eat cooked food' thing either. My mother is Indian.

No, it's not very British. This 'too hot for cooked food' thing is v British IMO.

Oh yes, a cold meal can definitely be nice but it's just this new trend on MN for vehemently denying the lovely pleasure of nice food I find profoundly wearing.