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

'They' being the op and her dp obviously, not her dc! I'm sure they don't eat in bed!

Some people have just suggested that she batch cook at weekends rather than her dp doing this during the week.

I was just thinking that too.

A lot of guilt-tripping and holier-than-thou sentiments going on on this thread.

Cook and eat the way that works for your family, OP. I'm sure your kids would rather have parents who are relaxed and rested than parents constantly in a grumpy sleep-deprived mood and a tizzy about cooking.

I read the reviews of the Michael roux dinners on the Ocala website. A lot of reviews were 1 and 2*. Complaints of off chicken and slimy peppers, on more than one occasion. Some reviewers echoed my concerns as too big for one too small for two.
Maybe they've improved, I don't know how old the reviews are but Michael Roux approved the original recipe he's not in the factory making them.

Ocado stupid autocorrect on my iPad didn't like that word

Well I've read recently that the problem with any pre-cut or processed food like this is they have high levels of bacteria called PAMPs, which lead to heart disease, diabetes, cancer and things like that. So it's always better to eat whole foods or prepare them yourself.

Of course sometimes we need a fast option but I wouldn't want to be eating these things all the time. It's not optimal and it is not healthy. Your instinct says that there is something wrong with them and you are right, there is.

You say you are cooking at the weekend, so why not just make double of whatever you're having and freeze it? You don't have to dedicate any 'special' time to batch cook. Then that would be a couple of dinners at least for through the week.

And honestly, looking at those particular meals, all they have is a couple of chopped veg, the meat and whatever sauce and rice measured out. I could chop up a chicken breast, a carrot and spring onion in the time it takes to boil a kettle. I don't think these meals really save that much time, a matter of minutes really, and for the difference it would make health-wise...

Are you kidding? My kids get fed lovely homemade organic food at nursery. What sort of nursery would give them chicken nuggets and chips? Is that even allowed?

Their menu today is

Breakfast Cereal and milk

Cracker and cheese, fruit

Lunch Turkey roast
Banana and custard

Cheese straw

Tea Vegetable bake

I take it your children didn't go to nursery clarrrpp?

Pirate- said many times kids are in bed. Can't be involved. Stealth's posts are saying exactly what I'm saying. Some posters just seem determined to make it into different ways to cook dinner. I'm asking about nutrition

Yes Nicky. Better get them up and show them how to chop a carrot. Otherwise they'll be delinquent.

It is interesting that many posts are recommending I spend my weekends batch cooking when I said clearly from the OP that my DH is doing the online shopping and meal planning to take pressure off of me because I am too busy and frazzled at the moment.
Yet so many posts are just recommending I do more and he does less!

News article about PAMPs - pathogen-associated molecular patterns. Also found in frozen pre-cut veg and minced meat etc.

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3439255/Revealed-REAL-reason-junk-food-bad-Harmful-molecules-chopped-refrigerated-products-raise-risk-heart-disease-diabetes.html

Stop feeling guilty. You have found a solution that is easy and reasonably nutritious.
Yes the pre-chopped vegetables will be less nutritious than freshly chopped, but what is the alternative ? Would you really have the energy to chop all the vegetables yourself every night ? And make your own sauce ?

If you want to improve nutrition with little effort I'd try to add more green vegetables to every meal. If you have a bag of spinach in the fridge it is easy to add a couple of handfuls to the stirfry. Or add green peas from the freezer. Or (a little more effort) steam some broccoli to go with the meal.

In my post I wasn't suggesting you alone cook at weekend - "you" plural are cooking.

Get your DH to cook at the weekend then.

Helpfully, advertised on the app is the mumsnet page for YouTube showing a recipe for tasty prawn tagine in 10 mins. I've just watched it and it genuinely looks like a 10 min meal to me for a non chef. Seems a decent portion and you could use frozen raw tiger prawns and defrost them in the fridge while you're out at work all day. Come home and dinner ready in 10 mins.

I do have pre prepared meals about 3 times a week, then the other 2 night of the week I just put some noodles & veg in a wok and have a lovely stir fry. At the weekends I get in the kitchen and cook maybe a lasagne then I freeze the left overs for in the week.

I can't see a problem eating them 5 times a week, you can always steam a little fresh veg to go with it for added goodness.

Interesting, Bravada. But its common sense really to think the more food is pre-prepared, pre-cooked or pre-frozen its gonna be less healthy.

That's really interesting bravada. It doesn't really surprise me, I suppose that's the sort of thing I was thinking of. However further googling outside that article is extremely limited and the findings seem to be based on an experiment involving only 11 people? Doesn't seem set in stone yet, but certainly contributes to the unease many people like me feel about convienience food. But then, it's about weighing up that risk with your life I suppose.

Exit- what do you mean "get him to cook"- get him to batch cook? He doesn't want to. Why would I "get" a grown man to do anything?

It's funny that you feel uneasy about these meals but your DH thinks they're fine. I think that men probably don't have all these feelings of guilt around food that are programmed into women from early on ('naughty' cake, yoghurt marketed at us for 'bloating', pathetic little chocolate bars while men get Snickers and Yorkie, endless salads).

Then you get comments like it being 'lazy' to have someone chop your chicken and veg for you. FFS, like it's more moral to chop them yourself, even after a long day at work. Is it more moral to wash dishes by hand or beat the carpets instead of hoovering? Why create more work for yourself than necessary?

That's a very interesting point noble. He literally thinks he's come across the answer to our evening problems. And there's me saying there must be SOME problem and looking at obscure science papers to find what it might be. Very interesting point.

You are overthinking this. DH is in charge of food and shopping and you are happy with the resultant food, then what is the problem? You don't want to cook something else, he does not want to cook anything else, you have a decent solution - why the hand wringing?!?

Bravado looks interesting thanks. Genuine question - how woo-ey do you think it is?
I read somewhere (prob here) that minced meat contains more bacteria which makes sense.

Amen to your post Noble. There's a tone of the OP not pulling her weight with the rest of woman kind if she's not chopping slicing and peeling. No such overtones about her husband.

I too am now at a stage in my life where I can't imagine anything worse than batch cooking at the weekend or lovingly bring a sauce to life over a 6 hour period. Done that got the t-shirt 10 years ago and now it bores the bum off me. Quick and easy or throw everything into a slow cooker at once and walk away that's my style these days.

Anyhoo OP try them for a week no one will die from scurvy or lack of morals from eating them.

But what about my children zucker. They will be set bad examples and what kind of shit will they be eating at nursery if their mother is slutty enough to use ready meals, they're set up for a life of delinquency.

Will no one think of the childreeeennnnn

Actually one of my children is a boy so he'll be ok

We were recently without a kitchen for several weeks due to building works, I bought nice healthily looking ready meals, made salads etc. I got sooo fed with the slop of ready meals, even the Thai/Chinese ones that look nice are actually just slop in another guise.

I gained 9 lbs in weight in 5 weeks and I have terrible spots. I wont be using pre prepared/ready meals anytime soon now that I have my cooking facilities back. It was a real eye opener.

When I cook I normally cook enough for other meals, then if I don't have time to cook I know that I have a home cooked meal waiting for me to reheat.

I use the waitrose pre-prepared ready for oven meat dishes. So chicken breast with the marinade already done that kind of thing. Shove them in the oven, frozen bag of veg to go with them and/or oven chips or couscous. Two minutes work, taste brilliant. The scratch meals are too much like effort - all that stirring

Although if you are partial to curry there is a fab range of "scratch" curry kits where you just sling in a chopped up chicken but there are various different packets of sauce and herbs to add in, and I think less salt. Indian chef maybe?

As for the example set with ready meals and what my DC are learning, DD had an frozen aunt Bessie's toad in the hole last week, and what she has learnt is that aunt Bessie is a much better cook than mummy.

What bad thing is watching mummy eat ready meals teaching our dc?