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.

I'd rather just have beans ot toast. Ready meals are actually disgusting (that's without thinking about the gory details of how they are made)

I try and use the "tumble down" method by buying a few key items things that are cheaper/plentiful that week and use them in different ways - hence the dominance of courgettes, tomaotes and broccoli this week.

This is what I do mostly. I don’t meal plan and just buy things that are easy and quick for me to prepare. It usually takes under 30 minutes to cook and most things I usually prep in advance like vegetables and make more than I’m going to eat like pasta because I know I’m going to have them again.

But the question wasn’t about fresh food, nor does my post mention it? 😆

Anyway I’ll answer- like I said, we eat stuff like fish fingers and oven chips, which isn’t technically a ready meal but definitely wouldn’t call it fresh. Cooking from fresh to me would be making from component ingredients rather than pre assembled items. Kits and pre-made sauces are the middle ground I suppose.

Yes, I probably buy and re-heat them at least once a week.

However, I live in Ireland and our local supermarket ready meals are nothing like the mass produced ones sold in U.K. supermarkets. For one thing, there’s no Tesco near where I live. It’s mostly Supervalu or Spar shops. Plus Aldi and Lidl but I wouldn’t buy their ready meals.

The meals I buy locally are made on the premises by qualified chefs and often with local ingredients as it’s a large farming and fishing community. They’re equally as good as home-made. For instance, I love the chicken curry from our local spar shop for €9.99 a tub. It’s a million times tastier than the only takeaway in town.

I’d class the Charlie Bingham products as standard mass produced meals by comparison.

That’s my meal plan for the last two weeks.

The spag Bol was batch cooked. I have one to two frozen batch cooked meals a week.

I use hello fresh hence “HF” moussaka is leftovers too - the bottom one is week 1 and the top week 2 I keep the grid and switch it out.

The prawn curry is from the batch lady book and again batch cooked.

The HF on the blank one is Aubergine and coconut curry, bacon and courgette pasta and chicken and pepper fajita bowl.

Never. We never used baby food pouches/jars either and we don’t use jars of sauces or anything. We’re fortunate that I have time to make all our meals from scratch.

Never, I've tried a few in the past and they're always disappointing so I don't any more!

I never eat ready meals. I cook from scratch every day (have a pub meal once a fortnight). My husband, though, doesn't like anything healthy, so he does his own meals - chicken in breadcrumbs and chips, Pot Noodles, sausage roll and a sandwich (white bread), fry-up, that kind of thing.

So rarely that I’d say never. I can’t remember the last time. Not this year and probably not 2022 either.

I watched a Youtube video this week where the presenter was making a "chilli" sauce from plastic gloves.

It was compelling and horrific viewing all at once ( Nile Red channel if anyone wants to look for it.)

It really rammed it home the chemical processes underlying much of the UPF manufacturers are selling us. If I wasn't a fan before it made me determined to cut down even further

This week I've got lentil curry for 4 nights, them it's going to be a veg lasagne for another 4. I make enough for a few days at a time so I'm not cooking every night. I don't have much freezer space so I only do as much as I can take without getting horrendously bored!
Before the lentil curry it was chickpea pasta.

Found it, thanks for sharing.

I had a baby four weeks ago and as he surprised us by arriving two weeks early I never got the chance to batch cook, so a friend recommended cook as we were struggling to find the time to prepare meals. Honestly, I was shocked by the price of the meals in there! We walked out, preferring to alternate between dinners of scrambled eggs or beans on toast when getting through the early days with a newborn.

I actually bought one of these this morning and was really surprised at how much they vary. The one I bought was just rice, others had added salt and sunflower oil/rapeseed oil. Others had onion powder and other flavourings.

Always best to check the ingredients!

Never eat them.

We used to eat quite a lot of ready meals as I don’t really like cooking but we realised we felt awful on them. This was Charlie Bingham, Cook and other Waitrose meals.
I now concentrate on avoiding UPFs although we do eat sausages about once a fortnight.
Im still finding my way but have got the recipe books out and am actually really enjoying it. Feel so much healthier too!

We never have the ready meals in plastic trays. My mum died of bowel cancer in her 60’s and my brother died of cancer in his 20’s so I’m just really conscious of diet and doing as much as I can to prevent any dietary related disease. I don’t work though and have the time, financial resources and motivation to cook from scratch the whole time at home. I do think there’s a lot of ignorance around nutrition generally as a result of how society has developed etc.

The meals I buy locally are made on the premises by qualified chefs and often with local ingredients as it’s a large farming and fishing community. They’re equally as good as home-made. For instance, I love the chicken curry from our local spar shop for €9.99 a tub. It’s a million times tastier than the only takeaway in town. I’d class the Charlie Bingham products as standard mass produced meals by comparison.

Do you have one to hand, I'd be interested to see the ingredients list - I'd be amazed if it's very different to a Charlie Bingham product.

We have a Cook ready meal maybe once a week, plus a weekly takeaway. I was going to say due to being time-poor but actually thinking about it, it’s more that I’d rather just spend time doing other things! I find life busy enough as it is.

I tend to describe anything readymade as a "ready meal", whether it's a pizza, freezer food or a ready meal in a tray. Charlie Bigham's (sp?) counts as a ready meal in a tray to me, as did the very nice aubergine parmigiana that I got from a local farm shop and is, apparently, cooked in small batches from fresh ingredients and frozen.

If I haven't cooked it and have just had to heat it up, to me it's a ready meal.
I've no problem with using them occasionally and would probably use them more if I didn't like cooking so much, but I feel that people who say they "never" have ready meals but do have fish fingers, chicken nuggets, ready prepared pizzas etc are kidding themselves.

I would love to see dh's face if I would serve him a microwave dinner. His father is a chef and they only had home cooked meals. During his studies his flat mates made fun of him cooking every night. At the beginning of our relationship he did all the cooking but after dc I started to cook too. I think he never had a microwave dinner in his life.

Chris van Tulleken has just written a good book about UPF, how it isn't food and how it makes us fat.

Worth a read. A lot of disease, if not genetic, comes down to a bad diet. Ready meals are part of that

I have an oven pizza a few times a month. And also these microwaveable omelettes I have for lunch when wfh. I also buy microwaveable mashed potato. I live and cook alone so don't get excited about making things from scratch when it's just me.

I think I've had one once in the past 10 years. Just could not be bothered to cook one day last year, and DC were constantly complaining they 'don't like' anything we do cook. So we bought everyone their own ready meal. Never again, it was more expensive than a takeaway and all tasted shite.