To not understand the obsession with ‘hot meals’?

[LastToBePicked]

As in “kids need to have a hot meal”, “They haven’t had a hot meal today” etc

Is it just short-hand for a more substantial meal or do people think there is some magic about food being hot that makes it more nutritious?

Is, for instance, a tuna pasta bake superior to a tuna sandwich? Or sausage and mash better than ham salad?

I've never really got the hot meal thing, either.
A cold meal can be as nutritious, people live in warm houses, so what is the need for a hot meal?

It’s a plot to keep us women in the kitchen.

It's just a short cut way of saying a nutritious big meal each day.

In the winter it is lovely to have hot meal each day - but a bowl of hot soup and bread is no better than a sandwich as neither has all the food groups you need without supplementing it

I much prefer hot food generally!
It definitely warms me up if I have a hot meal.

I think they're more substantial and perhaps more filling. And I do think kids should have a hot meal, living on sandwiches would get tedious.

Is, for instance, a tuna pasta bake superior to a tuna sandwich? Or sausage and mash better than ham salad?
I think it’s code for substantial: in both your examples the hot meal is more “sticks to your bones” than the cold option. I know a Pret sandwich or an M&S salad could technically have 3,000 calories and be filling but a toddler going to bed on a ham salad vs sausage and mash is for us the difference between an early wake for breakfast and a lie-in.

Although it’s currently dark, cold, and rainy, so I am only eating hot food: porridge breakfast, soup lunch, massive fucking chilli tea. Come summer I will be on your side and scorn hot meals.

Are you my DH?

I think if you're out in the cold for an extended period it's nice to come back to hot food. Other than that, it's surely the balance that's most important rather than the temperature.

When I was in 6th form I took a job working in the school canteen in my lunch hour. I got paid, but also got a free school lunch afterwards.

My DM told me I didn't 'need' two hot meals a day and it became a battle about me having more than a sandwich for dinner. I thought she was soooooo mean.

Tbf, I was putting on weight, this was her 'polite' way of letting me know

I know a lot of people who think food isn't a 'proper meal' unless it's hot. They eye salads in summer with suspicion and say 'that couldn't possibly fill me up!' without even knowing what's in it. But then these same people wouldn't think an omelette was a dinner or soup and a sandwich, or even a jacket potato with cheese. People can be strange as to what a 'dinner' should be...

It’s harder to create meals, particularly child-friendly ones, with suitable amounts of vegetables and protein if they are cold ime. So it’s shorthand for a full balanced meal rather than something spread on bread.

DS would have the tuna sandwich with maybe a few pieces of cucumber. The tuna pasta bake would have lots of tomato and sweet corn in it (for example)

But I rarely have a cold meal because of this: I had eggs and spinach for breakfast, we both had pasta and broccoli for lunch, and homemade pie (half veg inside) with a side of Brussels sprouts today.

Hot food is more palatable and easy to digest possibly?

I wouldn’t say it’s an obsession Op, but when it’s cold a hot meal is much nicer than a cold salad/meal IMHO.

But I think that’s just about portion sizes. Thick slice of ham, potato salad, tomato lettuce, beetroot, and some crusty bread can be just as substantial and probably healthier than sausage mash and peas.

A tuna bake and a tuna sandwich (based on similar portion sizes) are basically the same meal.

I think there are only so many cold meal options - sandwich or salad really. I'd get bored of that very quickly. With hot meals the variety is so much greater.

I don't know what we could eat that would be varied if it was cold every day. I like a sauce. But not particularly a condiment sauce.

Hmmm... I like hot food. My kids do too. They have sandwiches for lunch.

I don't think there is any obsession with "hot meals". But if you cook food you get many thousands of times more options than if you just rely on cold ingredients put together.

For me cold food in winter is a crazy idea. I like hit food to warm me up!!

But I think for most people, it’s coming from this idea that meals have to be sandwich plus crisps and a tomato for lunch (cold meal) and dinner as a warm meal. Dinner been thé substantial meal of the day.

What gets me is that some people seem to think that if a child has had a ‘warm meal’ at school dunner then they shouldn’t have one in the evening even if said meal at school will be small and no nutritious at all….
Same with nursery giving young children a ‘warm meal’ that is always a small portion but parents don’t dare giving them more because sureky they’ve eaten enough already. They’ve had a warm meal!!

When I hear that phrase I hear ‘freshly cooked’ so I’d regard a lovely wholesome grainy homemade hummus and salad with a heel of wholemeal seeded bread as more of a ‘hot meal’ than oven pizza and chips

Depends on the time of year. It’s winter, shove your salad. Try again with me in June 😁

I’ll have your veg soup though

Yes, but it’s harder to eat the large amounts of salad veg.

If that’s what you like, then that is fine. But for a lot of people a cold meal is mostly bread.

Also a hangover from using cheap cuts of meat. You tend to eat those hot. With a cheap, filling carb.

And what would we do with the mumsnet third day chicken stock if it was cold??

I suppose its more to do with the likelihood of eating veg with a hot meal ?

@Roselilly36

I wouldn’t say it’s an obsession Op, but when it’s cold a hot meal is much nicer than a cold salad/meal IMHO.

I do hear it a lot in the sense of people being funny about kids having a packed lunch at school because they “don’t get a hot meal”. I give my DS a packed lunch and I think they’re nutritionally similar to what gets served up in the school meals.

And bleurgh- tuna is gross cold but the idea of warming up what I assume to be tinned tuna?

I don't hear this at all tbh...

The only time I've heard similar is a friend's gran who hated the idea of friend leaving for work in the morning without something hot! If she ate cornflakes and had juice for example, her gran fretted but if she had a cup of tea nd nothing else though, that was fine!

@LastToBePicked

But I think that’s just about portion sizes. Thick slice of ham, potato salad, tomato lettuce, beetroot, and some crusty bread can be just as substantial and probably healthier than sausage mash and peas.

A tuna bake and a tuna sandwich (based on similar portion sizes) are basically the same meal.

You see I disagree there.

A tuna bake will have some vegetables and some sort of white auvergnat with it.
A tuna sandwich nit so much. This would be carbs and tuna.
Proportions are different too. I would have more tuna in the bake than in a sandwich etc….

I agree that you have much more variety with warm dishes.
And I can never eat as much vegetables as ‘a salad’ the i do when they are cooked (stir fry or simply roasted for example)