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.

@BeastOfBODMAS that’s why I started using hello fresh. Was sick to death of meal planning.

@Pluvia I posted a week's meals because people asked. I buy all my meat yellow sticker and shop at Costco to bulk buy, the rest is from Aldi. I don't buy ready meals because 1. I'm not used to them so never consider them but mainly 2. They are too expensive.

It's nothing to do with snobbery for me.

@RedRosette2023 correct me if I’m wrong but I think hello fresh relies on multiple people being willing to a) eat the same thing as each other and b) decide in advance what they want.
Neurodiverse household here. I really wish it were that simple!

Yes all the time. Maybe I'm lazy bit after work j cannot be bothered. I'd rather clean my house and have a microwave meal then spend ages cooking and washing up.

Never

We rarely have ready meals because of the cost and DH doesn't like them much. I do though and if he's away (which is quite often) I buy them from M&S etc. I don't get the snobbery and I am a bit perplexed that people seem to know that they all taste horrible when they apparently don't have them. How do you know?

Few times a month? When I find them in mark downs area.

Yes. We have some ready meals and 3 Hello Fresh meals per week. We both work full time and I really don't enjoy cooking. We also like the Charlie Bigham's meals.

Going to go back and read the full thread, as I was really interested in the UPF thread. We are a family of 5, (2 kids and a baby). What I would count as a true ready meal- eg individual plastic trays bung in the microwave or oven- I can honestly say we don’t eat those as a family- we have had in the last year only one of those- the M&S box Chinese meal thing- and it wasn’t great. But never any other kind of ready meals.

Then there’s the better quality ready meals that are raw, but prepared ingredients ones, like Charlie Bigham, before I got pregnant with my baby I would say we ate those perhaps once a month. But I needed to be very careful with diet for various reasons when pregnant, so cut them out and haven’t gone back, as they do still contain some things that aren’t great.

Things that I did (and some I still do) buy ‘ready made’ pesto, occasionally fresh spicy tomato pasta sauce which has no unrecognisable ingredients, fajita seasoning (rather than blend my own mix), pizza, etc.

Recently, I’ve read the ultra processed people and it’s given me a bit of a wake up call- we already did quite well with main meals, but us, and our kids were definitely eating too many UPF foods and I have recently made a lot of changes. There is no way I’d be able to cut out all UPFS but I am making a conscious effort to really cut back and get rid of the worst offenders.

But, I am lucky. I have the time (not working due to baby) and resources (money, not that we have loads but we are comfortable, a car to drive to a big supermarket, good quality butchers and greengrocers nearby) etc. Making these changes has been time consuming and expensive. I am willing to do it because I need to look after my own health and lose weight, and I want my older two to continue their good relationship with food and understand shit food shouldn’t be an everyday thing, as well as making sure my baby eats well. But I can 10000% see that it’s hard to make these changes if you’re on a budget/working FT/have kids with additional needs/you have a health condition/life is stressful- in the past I have DEFINITELY relied on loads of convenience foods and I will never judge anyone for using them.

Let’s be honest, you can pick up (as I used to!) packs of cheap supermarket biscuits for 30/40p and shove a couple in the kids’ lunchboxes and it’s cheap and quick. And they love them. Or you can make stuff from scratch which is ££ and takes time. It’s not as simple as saying to busy parents (and people without kids too) oh just cut out UPF/ready meals and just cook everything from scratch/whole meals etc.

All that said, I do feel a million times better since making these changes. Still need to kick the Diet Coke habit though…

We don't generally eat the microwave tub-type ready meals at all. The only person I know well who eats them regularly is my grandma. She buys expensive ones e.g. Waitrose and at 90 she obviously feels she can eat what she likes, which is fair enough.

We do have fish fingers and oven chips once a week though and usually a takeaway once a week too.

No. Someone asked for a specific list of meals that people ate on a standard week so I answered.

Absolutely. In fairness though it is normally a kebab which is just chicken or lamb with salad and sauce.

I only really try to avoid UPFs as against just processed food. We eat bacon, crisps etc.

And the meal plan wasn't intended as an example of super healthy food or whatever, someone asked so I answered.

Don't blame women, don't blame mothers, look at the food industry. And don't keep displaying your perfect menus produced from your own organic hens and gardens or whatever. That isn't what life is like for huge swathes of the British population and you're coming as smug show-offs.

Where did you see anyone blaming women? And if you had noticed people suddenly posting their menus where it wasn’t asked in OP’s posts, why wouldn’t you think that perhaps it had been asked by someone else?

If you feel people are being smug, that’s a “you” problem. Is no one allowed to express an opinion and/or talk about their lives and experiences when asked unless it’s a particular way or meets a certain criteria?

Very few posters mentioned organic food, gardens, etc, so perhaps you should go back and read what others have been saying instead of making assumptions, calling people show-offs.

Very rarely. About once every 6 months a microwave macaroni cheese.

Some "ready meals" could just be chicken or lamb with sauce though.

@Pluvia
I think your first post was a bit harsh. Some posters were asking for examples of meal plans from people who don’t eat ready meals and some posters were thanking those that gave examples for the ideas and inspiration.

Just because I posted a meal plan doesn’t mean I look down on those that don’t or judge anyone that eats a ready meal. Rather, I just like to share what I do and hope it gives someone an idea or inspiration as cooking and food are my great passions. I know I often look on meal plan posts or food groups on Facebook for inspiration on what to put on the plan for the week. If you looked at my example, you’ll see there were many home cooked meals but we also had a takeaway (a kebab for Eurovision if you’re interested) and on other weeks you’d see fish fingers and beans on toast feature when we can’t be bothered!

I am lucky that I enjoy cooking (well eating) and that my husband does too and that we share the cooking duties, although I admit I do the planning but I sit with my tablet and scroll with a gin in hand when the kids are in bed, so I don’t find that a chore.

Regularly- partly disability, partly laziness. Mainly fresh soups. I like CB but they are expensive.
I’m evidently very unusual on here

Once or twice a week. M&S ones 😬 yum. When I make homemade my child won't eat it and does faces like they do on I'm a celebrity get me out of here. I also like those canned cocktails that have god knows what in them 😬

Yes when I came out of hospital frozen meals were handy in winter-time, when knocking up a meal from fresh wasn’t possibly.

I also had to stop berating people who got Mac-deliveries! as its so really handy to get the occasional breakfast and burger delivered to my door.

Have had Hellofresh deliveries in past but it’s hard when the food is normally out of date like 3 days later.

Summers coming so much more opportunity for salads!

I'm coeliac too and you really are coming across as extremely smug. HTH

Ditto!

And along with that ND household is Ds2 rabbiting 10 to the dozen in my ear hole, ticcing loudly and destroying every single train of thought I try to catch.

Only if I can’t be bothered to cook which is most days.

can't remember the last time we had a “ping dinner” to be honest. Or a takeaway. Just not on my radar. We do have pizza, or a posh-ish lasagne or similar maybe once every three weeks.

not through anything virtuous. 8 just never think about it.

True. You’d probably struggle to find many that can be kept shelf stable with nothing added however.

Regardless, I’m not averse to an oven chip and some chicken Goujons. I only posted what we ate this week because someone asked what those who didn’t eat ready meals regularly ate with real examples.

Can’t please everyone.