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

I did actually wonder if you were promoting these meals as this thread has gone on for so long. They are not ready meals as your title suggests - and you obviously know that as you have not ceased to point it out. I'd never heard of them before - I have now! If you like them eat them - you don't really need the approval of MN to go ahead and do that. Personally I think you (and DH) will soon get sick of having the same thing over and over again (waits for OP to come back and stress breadth of range). You have, however manage to elicit some hilarious replies - I also love the idea of a barbecue taking five minutes (and also the assumption that everyone has somewhere to barbecue).

Stealth. You know what's getting to me more? The lack of comprehension skills.

MN used to be a really good place to have a discussion/debate all out fucking row on one thread, nice chat to the same person on another thread now people seem, largely, lacking in comprehension skills.

What's making it so dumbed down?

There is as much variation in nutrion in ready meals as there is in 'home made' meals in my experience.

We buy ready meals for the three nights a week I work, however Inlook at the nutritional info on the packs and decide which ones look ok ( mostly green/ few Amber on the traffic lights system). We do eat mostly eat vege though so maybe that makes it easier??

Ha they've been around for years. I think Michael roux endorses them. Don't think he needs me on a 7 page MN thread to promote them

'See I don't think your post contains any truth at all really bacon' really?

'Realistically, the chopped food (with a higher surface area) should decompose within a few hours, and the dry, cold conditions of storage will also leech vitamins and minerals from it in the time period it is kept there.' More detailed but basically what I said in one point.

'Id say they're more nutritious than cheese on toast or a omelette too actually.' Eggs and dairy contain a LOT of nutrients and travel well if chilled.

Sorry I'm out this seems to be a

Aibu?

Majority of posters - yes

Op - no I'm not

Thread

Also suspecting it may be promotional

Ha ha ha ha @ promotion.

I asked if anyone knew what was wrong with them. No one does. So maybe there is nothing, the majority of posters are not saying I am
Being unreasonable at all.

Your chopped good point is irrelevant because it doesn't correlate to industrial food preparation conditions. Why would you think things are left out to decompose? Your point about losing vitamins or nutrients is sadly true of pretty much all mass produced fruit and veg.

buckinbronco

If you & DH find them (taste & size wise) acceptable then use them, they look fine & are far better than cheese on toast etc

We ate 'cook' meals most nights for a good while. Frankly I feel our nutritional needs were better met then, than now!

The only thing I'd suggest is mixing it with other either easier meals or 'cook' type things, simply because you do get fed up of it after a while and it stops being an option. I can't face 'cook' meals anymore, even though they're lovely.

You can worry about the impact they're having on your children's cooking ability when they're a tad older than nursery age and actually awake to see any kitchen activity 😁

Yes I think with no real reason to refuse them I may as well
Let him get on with it until we get fed up of them

If they are genuinely filling enough for two adults at the end of a working day then I think they are quite a good idea. £6 + 10 mins work for two main meals sounds good after being at work since 7am.

No bloody pre chopping meat and veg and whipping up a quick sauce at 6am for me thanks.

We had "prepared" food for tea last night, a rotisserie chicken, crusty rolls, coleslaw and a bagged salad with a bottled dressing. It was delicious and filling but the chicken alone cost £6. Plus the other bits at another £3.

IS it just me who is disturbed by the thought of GIANT cous cous?

I had forgotten about rossitaire chicken- what a nice idea

Batch cooki.ng is a lot of work. And you have to do a lot of it over many weeks for it to work and provide different meals over the course of your working week. Over summer I am far more in the mood for meals that are by definition quicker to cook. We tend to go for chicken stir fry using bag of stir fry veg, pasta with dressing or sauce, sometimes from a jar, and wraps with bagged salad. We could probably budget for a ready meal or two a week and I might now do that to give us a break. I wouldn't worry too much about this for now - though as pp have said, you'll need a new plan in a year or two when your kids are at school.

As an aside, I seem to be the only person on MN who eats oven chips. They never feature on meal plan or 'what are you having tonight' threads, and they are a handy staple for us. Grill a piece of meat to go with or have egg and chips. But I think they fall foul of the scratch cooking rule.

As an aside, I seem to be the only person on MN who eats oven chips. They never feature on meal plan or 'what are you having tonight' threads, and they are a handy staple for us.

We eat oven chips too. I've definitely put them on a "what we're having for tea" thread, probably as part of a busy week freezer tea (fish fingers, chips and beans is our favourite lazy treat!).

If you read some Joanna Blythman books about behind scenes in food industry you would get another perspective. There are lots of things done to preprepared food to make them last and look appealing that don't need to be declared on labels. It's worrying how little we know and how hard it is to find out.
I don't never eat preprepared food but when I do I at least know it's not as natural as it's made to look

Wow the reviews on Ocado are pretty awful. Are they as bad as they make out? They sound like a good idea but not if you end up throwing it out because it's off before the use by date.

I read Joanna blythmans books in my foodie days but I would imagine they are quite outdated now? Unless she's published a new one.

I like oven chips. And waffles

They taste ok. I didn't read the reviews, I think you'd only be prompted to write one if you didn't like it, like anything really

I don't think they're the end of the world. I get why you're using them. When me and DH both worked full time (and that was before the added hassle of kids and bedtime etc) we were out 6.30am-6.30pm and knackered when we got in. Plus being out those kind of hours we were getting up at 5.30am and had to be in bed by 10pm or were useless. Like you, I didn't want to spend half the weekend making Shepherds Pie and wanted to be sat down, eating at 7.30 latest and watch telly for a couple of hours before a bath. Money wasn't an issue. So yeah, I would have used these. I reckon you're probably not doing yourself too much damage if you do something like...

Monday- scratch meal
Tuesday- pasta and pesto with watercress
Wednesday- scratch meal
Thursday- Baked beans, onions and tinned tomatoes baked with a jacket potato
Friday- scratch meal

Weekend- takeaway/eat out

That way you aren't eating them five days a week and the two meals you have to break them up are easy as hell.

LilianGish we have a gas bbq, so you light it, put the steak on, and I don't have to wash up my griddle pan!

OP I like to cook, it's relaxing, so I wouldn't buy those meals regularly, and they may not have the ingredients chopped to the size I would.

Stealth I am back in UK and found some giant cous cous, so bought a kilo to play with as it's been appearing in some magazines and cookbooks recently, and I wanted to give it a try.

Fell what damage is the op doing with them though?

Tbh I think that's really lazy to do that every night Either cook in bulk or cook from scratch.

Involve the kids.

We've just made chicken nugget style things and sweet potato chips with some frozen veg and took all of 10 mins and to cook it takes 30 mins.

Kinda curious about what the kids are getting fed at nursery. Chicken nuggets and potato waffles? Because I doubt it's terribly nutritious.

Also looks as if you're pushing back any suggestions that are given to you. So it seems you're happy with how it is.

Why bother asking?

She's asking about nutrition. Some people have addressed that but she's had plenty of replies saying "batch cook all day sunday" or "make cheese on toast". Or other replies suggesting ways to save money. All of which very interesting and useful in general but not addressing the ops question at all. Which is very frustrating when you're watching it.

I think she was asking if there was anything specifically wrong with eating them 5 days a week. I'm not sure anyone has actually come up with anything concrete as to why not?? Some people have just suggested that she batch cook at weekends rather than her dp doing this during the week.

Why do you doubt the nursery are feeding her kids nutritious meals??

Her dc are in bed when they eat. Should she get them up, sleepy eyed to show them how Mummy can make lasagne sheets?