to consider living on ready meals from now on

[crochetmonkey74]

I HATE cooking and hate food shopping as well- last night as I popped into M and S for a food hall browse I pondered the idea of living on their ready meals from now on- does anyone do this? Do you get sick of it? Is it really expensive?

I live alone so no one else to consider meal plan wise- are there other shortcuts that are as easy but maybe a little more healthy/ frugal?

No. That level of processed food is a short cut to obesity and heart disease and an early grave

I sometimes think the same - their 3 for £7 range isn't expensive and is really good too. I recommend the chicken arabiata.

My mum cooked loads from scratch growing up. Complex curries, middle Eastern food...even homemade mayo. My parents divorced and then when we moved out she switched to ready meals and easy stuff (like bags of salad, smoked fish etc). It's more expensive than batch cooking but she says she doesn't want to eat the same thing over and it's not worth the faff for one. She does try and go at the end of the day and get some yellow sticker bargains.

My Aunt does.Shes single and has a very busy social life. She gets the meals and then adds veg. Another reason it suits her is that she can count her calories easier. Also our local marks does amazing end of the day discounts so she stocks up on her way home.

@0None0

No. That level of processed food is a short cut to obesity and heart disease and an early grave

Tell that to my 93 year old next door, veggie-dodging neighbour. She's still going strong on it.

If I'm cooking something that's light on veg I give some to her, which she relishes - lasagne and the like.

I imagine it will get expensive, but if you can afford it and enjoy the food go for it!

You'd need to watch serving sizes, so like some boxes say 500 calories per serving, but then in small letters that the box is intended for 2 servings. That can massively increase your calories intake without realising.

Yoh could also add steam fresh veg bags to your meals, cook from frozen in microwave, to help bulk up/add vitamins.

Some ready meals are lovley these days, the Charlie Bingham ones especially, but they are pricey!

You get fed up of it eventually.
Can you cook?

I’d be seriously worried about the amount of fat and salt I’d be eating, and the lack of fresh fruit and veg for essential fibre and nutrients.

Could you bear to do a batch cook of a few meals you like every few weeks, and then freeze (things like stews, curries and bolognese sauce) in single portions? Even cooking enough for two portions each time will halve the number of days you have to ‘cook’. And frozen veg is just as good as fresh, and comes pre-prepared so it’s easy to cook them.

I like the m and s ready meals, I quite often mix in some veg though, like tonight I’m having the macaroni cheese split in two and mixed with mushrooms and tender stem broccoli so it’ll do two meals.

I've done it before for a while in the past, mostly when I was only cooking for me. It does get boring after a while. But there are loads of options of prepared foods. There are salads, sandwiches, soups etc. I really like frozen veg now, because I don't cook for a big family it's easy to just get a portion of frozen veg quickly and not waste a lot of fresh food. There's lots of ready cooked meats and fish now too, it doesn't have to only be ready meals. There's no need to switch over rigidly to ready meals, have what you fancy and pay attention to the ingredients/nutrition labels. When you're bored of prepared food and fancy cooking or fresher food have it.

If you have a freezer you could batch cook and portion out e.g. curries, chilli etc as well, but I agree it sounds a plan. They do a healthy range as well and you could add some salad or veggies.

I like the M&S smoothie mixes and you could have it with a protein shake for a healthy 'meal' sometimes as well. Nice and cold in the sun.

Iceland/slimming world ready meals seem to be very much made with kitchen ingredients. They put the recipe on the back.

If I were you, I'd get three ready meals a week, batch cook for the freezer, and have jacket potato, good bread, simple foods the other days.

You can get healthy ones and add extra vegetables, plus there are normally discounts on buying multiple, so yeah I'd say it's not a bad plan...healthier than just snacking and probably cheaper than buying full ingredients if you're not going to use them. Def cheaper than a takeaway.

It's probably not healthy to do it all the time but no reason why you can't have a few ready meals a week and then mix that up with really really simple no/barely cook stuff (soup, salad, beans/egg on toast, spaghetti with pesto, etc). Maybe batch cook a large portion of something easy like curry/lasagne/chilli, as you live alone you could easily make six-eight portions in one go to freeze, and wouldn't take more than an hour a week. If you hate shopping do a click and collect or do hello fresh/simply cook but only get it delivered once or twice a month - each of their meals will probably do 2-3 portions.

basically a bit of a middle road between only eating ready meals and gourmet cooking every night.

If you want to stick with m&s you need to know when they do their reductions - you can get their best stuff at a good price!

I think it depends a lot where you get the ready meal from as to whether or not there are health implications. We are getting quite a few from Cook at the moment and they aren’t too bad.

I think buying part of the meal ( like a quiche, or a fish in pastry say, and adding either an intersting bagged salad or fresh veg would be a good compromise, but as pps say you need to keep an eye on the salt and sugar content. When I'm catering just for myself I often make a big salad eg hard boiled egg, tinned kidney beans, avocado, some chilli sauce and dressing, a few olives, and salad out of a bag - (that's what I'm eating right now 😉)

Be careful with your salt intake. Ready meals often have way more than home cooking would.

You could do this and eat perfectly healthily! Bag of salad and smoked mackerel, ready roasted pack of veg with a lamb steak, stirfry with some prawns. Sounds lovely and doesn't have to be salty stodge. Not sure it is more expensive for one person either as you will no longer be buying kitchenaids, cloves of garlic olives and the other bits and pieces you need for recipes.

I would do it in a heartbeat.

I buy lots of pre-prepared salads and meals anyway, (not ready meals though) Some butchers do pre-prepared fit meals with low salt and fat and no seed oils etc You can usually find them near gyms in industrial estates etc

I despise the waste of time that is cooking and meal planning. Buying as much as I can pre-prepared is worth every penny and improves my quality of life immensely.

As far as I'm concerned it's money well spent.

Try it, for one I can’t imagine it would be much more expensive perhaps even cheaper at times. My mother is now home alone and buys ready made curry, lasagna, cottage pie etc and adds veg/jacket potatoes to it. Easy meal for one without waste. She will
Cook from scratch now and again but makes a bath for the freezer too

I used to work with a lady that lived on M&S ready meals. She lived alone and didn't enjoy cooking for one. She'd buy loads in one go and freeze them.
I think you could be reasonably healthy depending on what you bought.

I used to do this a lot of the time when I lived alone, but make sure I didn't buy too much unhealthy / fatty stuff, and then I would make sure I had veg or salad with it too. Better than Crunchy Nut Cornflakes or fishfinger sandwiches every night!

Do you have a Cook near you? Their ready meals are really nice and fresh ingredients etc.

we lived with no kitchen for around 4 months while we had some major building work. My son and I lived off ready meals in the evening. He had lunch at school and I had lunch at work and we had fruit for breakfast every day. It wasn't that expensive in the end and there is very little waste. They have a healthier range set of meals that I got really into at one point!

I was pretty pleased when we got the kitchen back though! I lost a tonne of weight because I wasn't snacking or taking bigger portions etc. V easy to calorie count!

Some of the M&S ones are literally something like salmon, new potatoes and green veg in a plastic tray.

Pick mostly that kind and not things like macaroni cheese and I don't see the problem.

They also do the stir fry deal, which does 2 meals and you get a bag of ready prepped stir fry veg, chicken, prawns etc, noodles and a sauce. Again, totally fine and takes no effort and a few minutes to prepare.

Of course you can eat more cheaply, but not by a huge amount if you're cooking for one, especially if you can look out for the reduced ones or special offers.

Have you considered Hello Fresh? I know you have to still cook it, but they're generally not complicated.

It takes away the need to go shopping for food, you get to choose and try new things with out spending a fortune on a spice you might use once, it's reduced food and packaging wastage while we've been trying it.