To eat ready meals each night?

[Buckinbronco]

DH has taken over food shopping as I'm too busy. We have 2 DCs who eat at nursery and we get home at gone 7.30. DH answer is to buy 5 scratch meals a week. They taste ok and take 5 mins to Bung in a pan and hardly any washing up.
Their nutritional content looks fine- low fat sugar and salt. They're normal meals like curry and pad Thai.

I am probably over thinking this but I am Just not sure about eating packaged food every week night night.
But, I have a tendency to take the hard way out of everything and worry and this is easy. Peasy. And I can't find anything wrong with the food...aibu?

It's these: m.tesco.com/h5/groceries/r/www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=286931301

Jump that's interesting but how does it relate to what the op actually asked

Jeez, ignore all the suggestions about pressure cookers, slow cookers etc and enjoy your pre-prepared meals. They don't even sound that expensive to me.

And the person who suggested you were a poor role model for your kids - no way, you are eating a balanced diet, nothing wrong with it.

We've never been big fans of convenience foods, both OH and I have a repertoire of quick meals which we can have on the table 20 - 30 minutes after walking through the door. But if that's not how you cook, it will take time and energy to learn, and now is not the time.

Whatever gets you through the tough early years is OK and the fact that he is responsible for it and you don't have to think about it is a big plus.

Nothing to feel guilty about at all.

Not content genuine question why not?
Sorry if I'm banging on bit other people seem to 'get' things about meals, there are unwritten rules about "hot dinners" etc and I just do not see the logic.
why would cheese on toast be better than one of these meals?
Hoe can buying, separating, chopping all tour own stuff be quicker than this?
Why do people persist on telling the op how she an save money when she has made no indication she needs or wants to.
rant over. Think I'll find a thread about kittens.

Buy takeaway containers from the pound shop.

Batch cook one or two weekends a month, he cooks then you cook.

Cook bolognaise, this can easily be turned into chilli.

Do a big batch of baking potatoes wrapped in tinfoil.

Stews, curries.

Roast some chickens and strip the meat off, you can use with premade sauce, frozen veg rice or potatoes.

It takes a wee bit of time to learn the basics of batch cooking but well worth it. Not only in time but also financially.

But batch cooking will still take longer. I know I keep saying it but.... People keep suggesting it

Why is that better ikniwnuffink?

It almost feels as though people are answering what they think the op asked, rather than what she actually asked.
Never mind.

Op, I can see nothing wrong nutritionally in eating these meals.

Are you falling into some sort of guilt trap? That it is too easy?

I used to watch my mother assemble the hand mincer and put beef through it. She would get short shrift from me if she told me I was setting a 'bad example' to DC for using packets of fresh mince.

Guilt has no nutritional value. Neither does elbow grease.

Having looked at the pictures, it's someone chopping the meat and preparing the veg for you. Fab.

God knows why someone would suggest egg on toast or a takeaway instead of that.

Yes I am in a guilt trap!

Ooh maybe you could reassemble all the ingredients and then re chop them. It's just as quick after all.

Pmsl at 'proper cheese on toast'

Personally I wouldn't use them as the portion sizes sound small so I'd need extras to go with it or one each. I'd also get bored of half a dozen choices week in week out. I also like cooking and often batch cook for example I've roasted two chickens one was roast dinner, second was served next day with wedges and salad, leftovers from both went into chicken pasta bake. The brace of chickens cost £7 from my butcher. There's also five of us so your ready meals option would be mega expensive.
Still if it works for you then that's fine. They seem healthy enough if small and if you can afford it then it's no business of ours what you eat.

Go for it Buckinbronko. A lot of posters on this thread are projecting their own lives onto you for some reason. If we had anything like that here for such a good price I'd be all over it.

at the bad example stuff. I ate a lot of ready meals growing up; my parents both worked long hours, and prioritised other ways to spend their time. I was and am perfectly healthy (as are my siblings). I am also now a keen cook. My husband and I cook from scratch pretty much every night. However, we don't have children (yet). Maybe when we do we'll eat more ready meals. I don't think it really matters whether or not we do, nor do I think that children who grow up around ready meals somehow fail to notice that cooking from scratch is an option.

Ok, to answer your question it's a YANBU from me, I don't think it's a problem. It's probably not the best value (although if you can afford it, then fine). My only niggle would perhaps be it's getting you out of the habit of producing meals for when your DC are old enough to eat with you. I'm less precious now, but when my DD was tiny, she had the finest of everything to eat because I didn't want to fill her with crap because she was so perfect to me (but I accept I am very pfb, and esp was when she was little. Now I just throw crisps at her).

I would say at this time of year it's very easy to get very fresh and very yummy ingredients cheaply which make delicious meals in minutes (like a gorgeous salad with basil/spinach/rocket, lovely tomatoes, avocado, etc). Understand time might be an issue, but if you've access to a food market these things cost pence and taste great. More challenging to do this in the winter months.

I home-made pesto this weekend for the first time (to be clear, that wasn't stealth boast, it was an actual flagrant one). The recipe (Jamie) said it took 5 minutes, with lots of comments agreeing. It took me nearly an hour and a half (because I am a rubbish domestic goddess!!!!), but the ingredients were all fresh, and it smelt fantastic as I was preparing it, and because I knew I was going to do it, I checked out the ingredients on a saclar jar, and it's full of emulsifiers and additives (fair enough as it may have to sit on a shelf for months), but mine was all fresh.

We do quite a lot of making something in a quantity over the weekend and bagging and freezing. Soup works well for this, but not everyone wants to eat soup (but yummy with crusty bread, and very good for you. Well, depending on the soup!)

We ate these scratch meals for the weeks after DS was born and we couldn't be fucked to cook. They are alright and taste fresh enough but there are only a few kinds so they get boring and the portions are tiny.

I swear by my slow cooker. There was a good slow cooker recipe thread on here a few months ago.

Oh, and also I note that it's not you doing this (and the cooking), it's your husband. Obviously if he was doing an unreasonably terrible or irresponsible job of doing dinner (Domino every night or something) then that wouldn't be acceptable, but I do think it's important in a relationship for both partners to accept the other one doing a 'good enough' job. While it's clearly not the primary cause of domestic inequality, I do think some people make life much harder for themselves by not accepting their partner's 'good enough'; it so often seems to end up not with their partner doing a better job, but with it all falling on the 'fussier' person.

Well, fine if expensive and rather restricted, but what will you do when your DC aren't fed by nursery anymore?

Like hello fresh, that type of thing?

They are meant to be great for people exactly like you described yoursef OP - busy people!

TBH it looks fine nutritionally- a bit of chicken and spring onions you've chopped up yourself has pretty much the same nutritional value as chicken and onions chopped up yesterday by someone else and vacuum packed. But I reckon it'd soon become very samey- a lot of the dishes on the menu seem to be pretty similar.

Nothing wrong that I can see but the lack of choice would bore me.

There was a Saturday Guardian magazine (lots of) years ago. The cover was a picture of a bag of salad. I've tried to attach a random one (not the one from the article to show what I meant, but not sure it worked).

The article was about how quantities of sales of lettuce hadn't changed, but sales of lettuce leaves in pre-packed bags had rocketed (is that a pun?). I just remember 6 pages of horrific-ness. I really cut down what I brought from supermarkets as a result of the article (washing the leaves in chlorine, oppressing everyone within the system, etc).

You pays your money and takes your choice.

hwww.google.co.uk/search?q=bag+of+lettuce&biw=1920&bih=951&tbm=isch&imgil=ibZh1QcUze8jmM%253A%253Br58QtwTsQ9D5FM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.audion.com%25252Fen%25252Fproducts%25252Fform-fill-seal%25252Fspecial-engineering%25252Fpackaging-lettuce.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=ibZh1QcUze8jmM%253A%252Cr58QtwTsQ9D5FM%252C_&usg=__6-8pvC9pDQDGqycqHsiws4gSlko%3

Why do hardworking people view cooking an issue?

You put the correct petrol ino your car in order that the car runs properly.

Maybe they think that they are beyond the health issues that WILL befall them.

Who knows?