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.

You can wish, but doubtful I think.

It must be at least 5 years, if not longer, since I ate a ready meal.

I'm not in the UK, but my local supermarket sell roast meals, fish pie, lasagne, macaroni cheese, plus a few other things, all made on site. Yes, they are in a plastic tray and just require heating - I can't see how that is so unhealthy? A local fish and chip shop also sell roast meals every weekday, a choice of beef or whatever else they've made that day, with real gravy. Once again, what is so unhealthy about that? I live alone, no way am I going to cook a roast meal for myself, and I have a tiny freezer so if I make a family size meal I have to eat it for days on end. So much judgement on this thread. The rest of my meals are usually vegtables (cooked by me, often frozen) and something from a box in the freezer. I'm almost 64, visit a doctor on average every 10 -15 years for something minor. As I said in a pp, I find cooking beyond boring.

Yes, I often get them, various M&S ones and the curry's from Waitrose are nice, I hate cooking so have them if DH is not there as it's easy for just me

Where’s the poison?

”Cooked Rice (Water, Rice), Chicken (19%), Coconut, Milk, Onions, Cream (Milk), Ginger Purée, Demerara Sugar, Rapeseed Oil, Lemon Juice, Bamboo Shoots, Fish Sauce (Anchovy Extract (Fish), Salt, Sugar), Lime Juice, Cornflour, Lemongrass, Spinach, Basil, Lime Leaves, Parsley, Galangal, Garlic Purée, Salt, Green Chillies, Sunflower Oil, Garlic, Coriander, Red Pepper Flakes, Ground Turmeric, Shrimp (Crustaceans), Ground Cumin, Ground Coriander, Makrut Lime Peel, Coriander Seeds, Pepper”

Good question.

DH does make his fish pie from mostly scratch (uses a jar sauce) because he doesn’t like the ready meal ones. Saying that, he does get ready meals when he doesn’t want to cook for himself. He eats the usual fare (spag bol, curries, roasts, beans on toast, sausage, beans, and chips, chilli and rice on rotation) whereas I don’t and eat more towards a lean meat, veggie diet so we make separate meals. He does enjoy to cook though and cooks when his parents and mine visit and swaps and talks recipes with his mum, brother and sister.

I'm C.H.A.P (Council house and poor)
DH works full time and I stay home and care for my DS who is profoundly disabled with complex needs. We also have an adult child living with us who works full time and contributes to the food bill by a very small amount each week. He's currently saving for his own place so I don't ask for more.
I used to be a chef for a living, plus I'm home ALL the time, so I make cheap healthy meals for all of us..... BUT I could genuinely, easily go to Iceland (or even have it delivered) and buy 4 ready meals for us at a cost of £1 each. People who don't have time to shop, prep and cook or those who don't have the knowledge of how to cook, safe freezing/defrosting & cooking of yellow sticker items etc. I can see how it might be tempting.
To me they taste like plastic and I don't think I'd ever be tempted. I'd rather have a sandwich, or beans on toast than a microwave meal.

I think people are getting a little worked up about this whole UPF thing. I just looked on the back of a Charlie Binghams meal and I can identify all the ingredients. I don’t know how it’s going to literally poison me if I eat one every now and again.

My MIL has orthorexia and has been does not eat any industrially processed food, to the extent she grinds her own flour to make bread and pasta. I quite often think how desperately sad it is she wastes her life spending hours a day doing things like that.

Never. No ready meals and no take-aways.

@fyn just had the Spanish chicken tonight- excellent- tastes like homemade. I'm all for high quality eating and ingredients but some people just latch on to every fad going

my H would be quite happy to live off 5 ready meals ( quality ones I admit) plus some veg - a week --mixed in with a couple of made from scratch one

Mine wouldn’t. He does most of the cooking. From scratch with no jar sauces.

@Sissynova M&S or Waitrose Thai green curry Maybe?

Sounds great -

I agree. Meals aren't split into just two camps, ready meals, and meals made completely from scratch.

There's a scale - at one end would be what I'd class as a ready meal, which is a meal fully prepared where all you have to do it heat it. And the other end is a meal where all components are fully made from scratch. In between are meals made with pre-made ingredients eg jars of sauce, frozen roast potatoes etc which I wouldn't class as a ready meal (because they are not a meal that is ready).

Nope, but only because I don't like them. I'm not snooty about them at all.
However...a couple of times a year, I will buy a Bombay Bad Boy Pot Noodle, as I bloody love them! 😂

Have a Charlie Bingham fish pie every now and then if I'm shattered and can't be bothered to cook

Wrong! It’s a plastic tray of pure poison!!

I work and have a disabled child. I have no time or inclination to make a fish pie from scratch. I cook from fresh most of the time but aim to do 20 min meals like curries, stir fry - basically veg, protein and rice is a big part of our diet

I’m a big fan of a Charlie Bigham’s fish pie personally. I’m time poor and knackered, so shoot me. Pre pandemic when I went to the office most days my favourite was to swing by Wholefoods and pick up a pre-roasted free range chicken and a ready made Caesar salad. We don’t eat crap but I’m not a martyr to the kitchen and I don’t own a microwave.

Most Likely M&S. They put cream in all sorts of things it has no business being in. Not poison but the wind it gives me may as well be.

@Sissynova brilliant - in that case im sure lots of the population would be more than happy to eat poison 4 or 5 nights a week-

This thread is mental- don't get me wrong I personally couldn't live on Iceland or Lidl ready meals (the value type ones) not because they are pure poison but because they taste like nothing- and like others I would rather eat an omelette - but at the quality end I've had some lovely ones including a few from cook that were in all honesty better than my variation of that meal.

I agree can't see what's bad about these ingredients

Ingredients
Potatoes, Milk, Cod (13%) (Fish), Salmon (10%) (Fish), Cream (Milk), Butter (Milk), Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Smoked Haddock (3%) (Fish), Water, Spinach, Cheddar Cheese (Milk), Free-Range Egg Yolk, Salt, Parsley, Fish Stock (Fish, Salt, Dried Potato, Sunflower Oil, Dried Cod (Fish), Lemon Juice Concentrate, Anchovy (Fish), Onion Powder), Lemon Juice, Yeast, White Pepper, Caramelised Sugar, Colours: Paprika Extract, Turmeric Extract

What counts e"regularly"?

I eat them probably once a fortnight as DH and I really like the meal-for-2 Indian takeaway bags they sell at Morrisons. Otherwise almost never. Occasionally DH will do the shopping and buy one if it's on special offer.

I lived on microwave meals for two weeks once because I didn't have a working oven or hob. Some were MUCH better than others. I actually threw away one lasagne after one bite because it was like cardboard with bechamel sauce. But others were very tasty.

Agree. I also think it’s funny to view ready meals and convenience foods as separate things as though one is automatically unhealthy and one isn’t.

I could easily live a pretty healthy existence of higher quality ready meals. Things like the Charlie bighams or M&S meals are pretty much only normal domestic kitchen ingredients. It’s literally no different to your mum ’batch cooking’ (which MN are so fond of) it the day before and leaving it in your fridge. It’s not hard to buy ready meals that aren’t full of garbage. Add a quick bag of steam-in-the-bag-veg and you’ve a super quick, easy, healthy dinner that has almost no washing up and many of them have almost no plastic waste.

Or I could say ‘oh no, I would never feed my children poison like a ready meal’ but regularly cook with processed connivence foods like frozen chips, frozen chicken steaks, frozen roast potatoes, pasta sauce, curry sauce, a pre-made dessert, frozen pizzas, fish fingers etc but it’s not a better or healthier diet purely because of a lack of ready meals.

@Sissynova 100% agree- when my gran got to 65 she told my grandad she would no longer be cooking from scratch more than 3 times a week so he had better get used to M&S

Ooh, I also often have those Birds Eye steam bag vegetables, I like the one with sweetcorn, peas and carrots, I guess they are ready meals also