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.

Almost never have the plastic microwave tray sort. For a family of five I'm not even convinced it's cheaper or easier than cooking. I keep a couple of frozen lasagnes in for DH, who has no interest or ability in cooking, to eat if the rest of us are out.

We do have some ready made things like pizzas, breaded chicken, meat pies, Asian dumplings, onion bhajis etc but otherwise cook from scratch or using a ready-made sauce or marinade with home-cooked meat or veg.

Only time we used a lot of ready meals was when we had no kitchen just a microwave upstairs due to flooring being done downstairs. So bear in mind the statistics include people who don't have proper cooking facilities as well as people who don't know how or choose not to cook.

Ready meals never although DH gets a (yes Charlie Bingham's) cottage or fish pie for him and DS if I'm out.

Buy loads of processed foods even as a keen cook though - cheeses, pasta, couscous, bread, crackers, peanut butter, jam, marmite, flour, tins of tomatoes, tinned chickpeas and beans, tomato puree. Loads of saucy things like siracha, fish sauce, soy sauce. some spice pastes.

What's "regularly" though?

Eating a ready meal for 1 of your 21 meals a week doesn't seem that bad to me.

But I'd still say having one a week is regular.

I wouldn't say the Cook or Charlie Bigham meals are UPF either, or at least not much more than if you made them from scratch at home.

Oh yes the fish one is good too.

I do once or twice a week (sometimes more). By the time I get home from work 3 days a week it's 8pm. I then have to put DS to bed and do a bit more work. I don't want to start cooking at 9pm. Sometimes I get organised and batch cook, but not very often unfortunately.

Interesting subject I would say I have a ready meal 2-3 times a week! Long story but got screwed over on a kitchen. Personally I wonder how many people who claim to cook from scratch use jar sauces for their home cooked lasagnes or Bologna’s. You can only claim cooked from scratch if you not used a jar otherwise just as bad as ready meal lol! Haha 😂 sorry I don’t think anyone should judge and completely agree with all the above answers home cooked always best and healthier as you know what’s going in it and the. Ready meals never fill me. No judgement on jar sauces either it’s whatever fits with your family! Thank god for airfryer lol

Not often no. Maybe once a month, we'll have a lasagna or a curry/chinese meal from the supermarket. I don't really like them and I generally like cooking, so my dislike is enough that I'd rather cook from scratch. We almost never have a takeaway for the same reason.

But kids do eat fish fingers/chicken dippers/frozen pizza about once a week. I don't know if that counts as a 'ready meal' but it's certainly a convenience food.

https://www.ocado.com/products/heinz-fragrant-coconut-beans-bowl-581484011?ds_rl=1126321&ds_rl=1164972&ds_rl=1291426&gclid=Cj0KCQjwmZejBhC_ARIsAGhCqneUpw5dTZqLYzCBz0TYj5ULyaw3Q-oEU9sYCf4vg4YGH8FmEQUz33YaAucEEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

These are actually quite good and look pretty "clean" for a healthier ready meal.

@Sissynova I get the same fish but often you can get cheaper packets of the same quality just smaller or more irreguar pieces. I use it to make up my own fish pie mix and freeze.

Probably once a week - I tend to buy Cook ones from the garage and Charlie Bingham (Waitrose) ones as a a bit of a treat!
My daughter had a beef noodle thing from M&S the other day and is was really good - I made a mental note to buy some more and thought that this would be a better option than a disappointing expensive take away curry that we have twice ish a month...
I do enjoy enjoy cooking but it is a relentless task and if you don't live on these things I can't see a problem..

I live on my protein ready meals at the moment but we are renovating a house and they are the healthiest I could find we just don’t have the storage for lots of fresh food at the moment!
the kids are fussy so we mainly do pasta based meals for them as that’s quite easier using tinned tomatoes mince and frozen veg but they also have chicken nuggets pizza fish fingers but served with oven chips and frozen veg. I’m looking forward to having a decent kitchen again! But can totally see why some people would find ready meals easier as not everyone has the space to prep and store lots of ingredients. On a side note it has worked out a bit cheaper doing the my protein deal from Iceland as I’m not having to buy all the veg and meat to cook of which we do end up wasting veg I need to work on only buying what we need but struggle where it’s better vaule to buy more.

@imanitheprophet

how do you get so many steps in?!

When I listened to the podcast about Ultra Processed Food I realised that my daughter mainly eats it, when you count pizza, quite a lot of types of bread and breakfast cereal as ultra processed. I was almost guilted into cooking different breakfast for her but not quite yet - she loves cereal so much and I can't quite get my head around the fact it's not 'healthy' (it was marketed to us as extra healthy when I was a kid!) Also cooking is tricky for me at present.
I'd eat ready meals most days if I could because I'm too ill to cook, but I have dietary intolerances so I mastermind cunning cooking plans which carers carry out! Wish instead of just having to eat less because it's unhealthy, that it would be regulated better and that there would be more genuinely healthy options available.
Also I'm on a very high salt diet for health reasons, so the salt aspect of ready meals works for! But not for most people, I guess... I think it's shocking how much salt ready meals can have.

Never buy ready meals but we do order a takeaway sometimes so we aren’t against convenience/laziness!
I was raised on microwave meals and frozen convenience food, wouldn’t have them now and don’t feed them to my kids either.
I don’t have nuggets or chips in the freezer, we just don’t eat them. Dh or I (usually dh!) cook a family meal every night unless ordering in. It’s more for the ritual of sitting together and catching up, checking in with each other. Also, the dc are really handy in the kitchen, dd2 cooks for all of us on a Monday and dc3 helps his dad most nights. Dc1 is just back from uni and doesn’t want to cook for us!

I cant believe theres only a few of us admitting they eat them most times.

Ive just bought a fridge full of ready meals. They're nice, they're filling. Its food.

I can highly recommend Cathedral City lasagne from Iceland.
It's lovely.

We never buy them. I did when I was in my 20’s and juggling uni/work/placement but I never do nowadays. I feel like always seem like such a sad wee meal!

@Cantstaystuckforever has it right. Lots of people's version of "proper cooking", including mine will involve some UPF eg ready made sauces, pesto, marinades etc. I should think the people making their own hummus and pesto are very much in the minority, partly because it would cost more than buying the ready made version.

So I wouldn't be surprised if at least 90 per cent of people are using readymade ingredients and products in their cooking. But I'm surprised as high a percent are eating complete prepared microwave meals on a regular basis.

For all those people saying they never eat any type of ready meals, I’d be interested in seeing what you eat for dinners? I don’t mean general answers - I mean a day by day dinner plan for a week or two.

Because people usually saw “oh, lasagnes, curries, chilli etc” - but are you making those every bastard night?! 😳😳

I love cooking (and baking) but I don’t have the time or space to batch-cook, and I’m definitely not cooking completely from scratch every night after a long and knackering day!

So I’m wondering what I’m missing here? Can anyone share what their actual dinners were for the last couple of weeks?

We occasionally have ready meals when dh is on call, the rest of the ready stuff is frozen pizzas, chicken kievs, fish fingers, chips, basil and tomato ready pasta. Stuff like that.
I prefer my son to eat fresh veg and hearty meals, he likes brocoli and carrot but we don't always have time to cook as my dh is the main cook. By the time he's gotten home it's only an hour until ds goes to bed so half the time I'm shoving something quick on.
It's also 50/50 my ds actually wants dinner as either he's too full up from the inlaws or he just doesn't like what we put in front of him.
I'm just glad he gets at least one decent meal a day.

I use Pyrex - actual brand name, not the cheaper versions. They go in the oven/freezer/micro, they do square/rectangular versions with plastic lids. Beware of the cheaper versions, TKMaxx often have some that are only good up to 150⁰C, although sometimes they have proper Pyrex too.

We've had (from memory)

Saturday - homemade potato wedges, homemade chilli from freezer, grated cheese and sour cream and homemade salsa.
Sunday - Chicken roast - no readymade elements but used a stock cube in the gravy
Monday - sausages (not homemade!) with rice and veg
Tuesday - cous cous with roast veg from freezer and halloumi and mint yoghurt
Wednesday - thai beef curry

I go to the supermarket and you will see many people do

That is a ready meal

@SeemsPointless so:

Monday - new potatoes sliced thinly and baked in the oven with red onion, bay leaves, garlic and lemon, grilled mackerel fillets and steamed broccoli.

Tuesday - pancetta, mushrooms, sliced courgettes, garlic and fresh tomatoes fried slowly with red wine to make a sauce and stirred through pasta.

Wednesday - egg fried rice with chilli garlic prawns and broccoli

Tonight - roast peppers, courgettes and tomatoes with cous cous and baked cod.

All made from scratch when I get in from work. It takes about 30 mins.