Do you eat ready meals regularly?

[RedRosette2023]

Following from another thread - I heard a statistic the other day that said up to 90% of people regularly consume ready meals. As in, in a plastic container and from the microwave or oven.

I sense that MN is quite middle class so likely not representative of the whole of the country. But I was surprised by that statistic.

I genuinely can’t remember the last time I ate a ready meal. I occasionally gave eldest DC an Ella tray when they were weaning, a meal I could keep in my changing bag and have handy in case we were out over tea time. My youngest refused any pouches etc so he has never had one. He’s always just eaten what we’ve eaten and taught me baby food is totally unnecessary, albeit convenient at times.

I am coeliac so it’s possible my habits have been formed due to necessity - I would struggle to pick up a ready meal I can eat with ease. M&S do some and I think GF ones slightly more available now but I just don’t buy them.

I’m also not a SAHM Mum, I work a pressured job four days, my DH works away mostly during the week, I use hello fresh etc 3-4 days. But I always find time for a meal. My ready meal is something batch cooked out the freezer.

No judgment - just genuinely interested.

Wow, uncalled for and do you have any statistics on that?

We have had some recently as my hob broke so were just easy to stick in the oven. But generally I don't buy them all the time. I get them occasionally if I'm not going to be home for dinner and my DC's dad is looking after them at mine so it is easy for him. My DD usually has a pizza or pasta bake and my son likes pumpkin Katsu curry. A fresh meal is nicer, though and they are very expensive.

We probably eat them once or twice a week. DH is away tonight, the DCs are out for dinner so there’s a ready meal curry in the fridge for me. I’ll be mostly revising with DS from 9am-9pm today so I’ll be buggered if I’m going to spend my 2 hours spare cooking a curry from scratch!

@BusyCaz I use them exactly like this when I'm dieting too. I do buy nice one M&S, Waitrose, cook etc and just add veg or salad. It's handy as we then can eat different things at times.

Never. I don't think they're very nice. DH occasionally has a ready meal lasagne from the fridge section of a shop.

Was chatting with friends once about what we'd do with a big lottery win. Amid all the usual holiday, big house, fast car suggestions, someone said, "I'd hire our own chef, if we had a chef we'd be healthy, slim and far less stressed". I thought that was so true, how many of us would eat so much better if we didn't have to worry about the mental load and drudgery of it all.

Never as they're too expensive and very often disappointing, however like others have said I do serve frozen pizza/veggie nuggets/fish fingers/tinned soup for the kids sometimes.

Personally I would always ALWAYS opt for things on toast when I can't be arsed cooking.

Lasagna etc., never. I don't like them. I like frozen pizza though or stir fry noodles, so I'd say I eat this kind of stuff 2-3 times a month. I love McDonald's though and eat it probably twice a month, so that's 4-5 in total.

Maybe once a month I get biryani from Sainsburys. Also the odd chicken pie. The quality is not so good these days so it puts me off.

No, never. I hate ready meals and love cooking (and especially eating!) the food we cook ourselves.

Never. That's not snobbery, I love to cook so it's completely alien to me - at the end of a long working day cooking is my therapy and me time! If I can't be arsed to cook, I'd normally have a toastie or a fried egg, rather than a ready meal.

Usually about once a week. I like the ones from Cook as they are more filling.

DH does the cooking and is due to have surgery in the next couple of months. I hate cooking so I'll be stocking up on ready meals that I can shove in the oven until he's recovered as I hate cooking

We don't because noone here really likes them. I used to like Amy's Kitchen and their broccoli pasta in particular but I've not bought them for years and I think they've stopped making them anyway.

Generally ready meals just seem a bit gloopy and full of bad cheese. I don't think they're that cheap either?

I've broken my arm and have a whole stack of ready meals in the fridge. They are marvellous. I don't normally est them as they are expensive and too processed. But they are doing a good job ATM.

Except for recently while our kitchen extension was being built, I rarely ate a 'ready meal'. And frankly after weeks of pot noodles, microwave meals, i am totally sick of the lot of them.
However, a colleague at work (male) once told me they never ate 'convenience' food, and always ate within half an hour of getting home.
I realise here I am deliberately mixing up ready meals with convenience food, but obviously convenience food includes a loaf of bread (unless you regularly make your own.
In my case when DC were young, my main objective was to make sure I had some meals cooked from scratch food during the week, though not the entire time.

It depends on my health, I can't always cook and sometimes I don't have anything I've cooked and frozen.

In the days of me doing 'on call' and not having a freezer I would have a few in the fridge because I might not be able to eat otherwise.

Very rarely for the kind that comes in a plastic tray. If we’re including stuff like frozen pizza/fish fingers/oven chips/jar sauces etc then probably once or twice a week when we have a busy evening.

No, because they taste mank. It's relatively fast to cook basic fresh so we just do that.

As I said, I don't buy them but I can see the advantage of getting a prepared lasagne or a pie for instance, if it's just you or a couple, or you hate cooking as they can take ages. I don't get buying a pasta ready meal generally though, it takes no time at all to cook pasta and make a sauce.

Very rarely I have always given my kids a bit of what we were having. They are both severly autistic and will eat anything I put in front of them. Love fruit and veg. They had the odd jar when we were out not often. They would rather have a home cooked meal over fast food.

The word ‘regularly’ doesn’t mean ‘frequently’ though. It means at evenly spaced intervals. I could be said to be a regular eater of chicken pies, at one every six weeks.

Fairly regularly, once every couple of weeks.
We get ready-made pies and pizzas, then less frequently a microwave tray meal for the kids if we have a busy evening with clubs etc.

I do but frozen food too, veggie burgers, Quorn nuggets etc., oven chips. We probably have a meal like that once a week, but if super busy it could be more.

Less than once a year I would say… I genuinely don’t remember the last time I had one. Could easily be 4/5 years ago

Yes and someone upthread has posted the data from where the quote derived. The 90% was misleading and actually what I would class as regular was about 24% which is probably in line with my expectations.