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.

@bryceQ I eat these when H is away- just add peas and spinach- love em!

Once every other week or so, when I'm out of the house from 8am to 10pm and there's no oven in the office and I've run out of frozen batch cooking.

All the time. Is that really bad? I do check the nutritional value though. I eat lots of meals from 'Cook' too...

Really in the mood for a CB fish pie now.

I just buy the Tesco frozen rice bags. It's just water and rice in the ingredients. They used to do brown rice too, but haven't seen them for ages. You can stir fry straight from frozen too, which is handy for fried rice.

Hell yeah, this.

I do. My DH works away a lot and my DC are now adults who have their own homes. I have a horrible hip issue which gives me a lot of pain and by the evening I am happy to just heat up a ready meal. I try to choose things which are pretty much like I would cook. Not all ready meals are unhealthy and ultra processed.

Tried one once, a fish pie from Charlie Bingham range. It was very average and my own fish pie is far superior. Also portion size was way too small for my liking.

I love cooking from scratch, just how I was brought up and use good quality ingredients. Even when pushed for time, it's so quick to knock up some pasta or an omlette.

Sometimes 🤷‍♀️ I think there are lots of different reasons and lots of different meals. Some do it out of necessity - they can be very cheap, you only need a microwave to cook them (an inordinate amount of people are living long term in temporary accommodation and simply don't have the acccess to a kitchen), there are diet specific ones and medical or otherwise restricted menu ones, there are protein loaded, and well balanced, there are posh ones (I'm looking at you waitrose) and funnily enough there are ones im recyclable package that through mass production are likely to have a smaller carbon footprint than your "made from scratch, 10 different none recyclable plastic packaged, out of season, shipped in veggies and meat meal" average meal (not op specifically just in general) so they are a greener option too. So yeah, sometimes I have one, I don't like the taste of most I've tried and I'm often actually away from a microwave so not an option then but hey, no one is perfect 🤷‍♀️

We don't ever have them. I don't have anything against them, it just isn't something I would ever think of buying really. I've never looked at prices but I always presume they are expensive(for decent ones that would feed a family of 4) and food is already really expensive here(Ireland) so I watch what we spend quite closely.

Never. I found them absolutely foul, and all tasted like they were 99% salt. I dry wretched after the last one I had at uni which is what drew the line under them for me. A ‘ready meal’ is a frozen portion of something previously batch cooked, or a store bought pizza if I’ve not had time to make up bases myself or have none left/the toppings are all gone (I freeze bases I make using the breadmaker then add all the toppings to pop in the oven). DH sometimes has them when I can’t get away from work so stops at the supermarket on his way home and picks one up (rather than throw something together from ingredients we already have!). It shows though as his weight’s been creeping up over the years he’s got into this habit!

Yes, because I'm lazy and sometimes don't want to cook. I'm lucky that there's no allergies/intolerances/coeliac/anything like that in the house though.

Most microwave rice has little oil - and some microwave rice has 'bits' in - if you look at uncle bens flavoured rices- the ingredients list is long! It counts as ultra processed. (I think the 'microwave rice - is a little more processed than plain rice due to the oil too)

Very rarely, have to be feeling extremely lazy to get a bog standard one or extremely wealthy to get a healthy one - my local farm shop stock some amazing ones but they cost a lot and I don't think they'd count as the evil sort... Have occasionally purchased a Charlie Bigham mac & cheese but only on offer and probably only once or twice a year. Possibly a pie every year or so too. Don't think I know anyone who eats many ready meals, think you'd have to be rich, lazy and not concerned about health and I don't think many people are all three. Difficult to believe 90% REGULARLY consume them though I wouldn't be surprised if 90% eat them more than once a year. Though I suppose older people may well have them regularly.

We never have them. The portions are too small and i am not keen on the taste. To me they are bland salty mush.
i don’t batch cook but tend to over cook (force of habit from when all dc lived at home) and freeze leftovers so there’s usually a portion of something in the freezer.
i do use frozen mixed veg, fish, those battered chicken in breadcrumbs for wraps etc so do use convenience foods at times.
i don’t find cooking that much of a chore and love a one pot recipe/ tray bake that you can just leave to cook in the oven after minimal prep.
The biggest chore is thinking what to have every day.

I used to a lot but since I've been trying to make my diet cleaner I don't remember the last time I ate one. Hard to find the time to cook from scratch but it's worth it.

I would be surprised if that statistic was true tbh unless they include a ready made pizza!

We like you hardly ever have ready meals apart from a few ella ones for my son when younger. The last ready meals we had were a quick fix to me going into labour early and having to have a c section so wasnt very mobile. I got a few delivered by a supermarket for easiness in the current situation, they were tasteless and wouldnt rush back to get any more.

We are much like you in that i will make a lasagna or cottage pie, but make enough for 2 or 3 then pop one in the freezer for a later date to save time. This was my idea in the last two weeks of pregnancy too as i was due to be on annual leave from work then but ds had other ideas on that so i never got chance.

Ohhh... separate meals is the dream...except my husband would quite happily live on pies and Pot Noodles forever if I let him He just fussy. Doesn't like tomatoes, coriander, spinach, Pak choi, salads.
We do Gousto which was a life saver for me. Only three meals a week but it saves that awful midweek 'what the hell am I going to cook' nightmare, also much less shopping.
When I lived alone I rarely cooked from scratch, unless it was something like a jacket potato..
Cooking for one is a real pain, buying stuff in small enough quantities etc.

No takeaways? You poor thing. Admittedly we rarely actually leave the house to get it but we live in London and can get pretty much anything delivered.
It's not a regular thing but when you can get amazing Turkish (Thai/Japanese/anything) brought round on a moped sometimes it's hard to resist.

Depends what's classed as a ready meal, and what's classed as regular.

We'll usually have a couple of days where dinner is something that was batch cooked.

I have a supply of Huel for myself (and DH if he wants it), as otherwise I'd be likely to have no food during on call shifts. It's easy to make and store, easy to carry around and quick to consume.

DC has 2 particular types of pre-made baby/toddler meals that they quite like. So we keep a couple of each in the house for use on really busy days, or if DC is refusing all other food. I'd never claim that they're healthy, but they're not ultra, ultra-processed and the ingredients lists aren't horrendous.

If you mean something for adults that gets stabbed through a plastic lid and stuck in the microwave for 5 minutes, though, I honestly can't remember the last time i did. If I cba making something, and want something unhealthy, I'll fully commit and get a takeaway. We've got a fantastic Indian restaurant just round the corner, where I know the staff and know the food is good quality, and we have Turkish, Greek, Moroccan and Egyptian restaurants with 10-15 minutes of our house.

Never. They don’t even seem to exist in the country where I’ve been living for the past almost decade. I’ve never seen any except for instant noodles. I wouldn’t even if they did.

As soon as I saw this thread I knew it would turn into a who cooks/eats the healthiest and god forbid anyone who dares eats a ready meal!
Personally I don’t like supermarket ones but the Mindful Chef ones are ok and I’ll have one very occasionally.
My kids on the other hand eat ready meals (3 teens) because they’re fussy and I’d rather they eat something than snack on sweets and crisps behind my back.
😉

I'd be interested in the methodology of the study that resulted in this 90% figure.

I suspect it might not really be representative of the population, i.e. have they got a representative sample from different income groups, different age groups, ethnicities etc? It would be interesting to look at how they chose people for the research.

I say this because more of my white British friends eat ready meals than other backgrounds/ ethnicities. I also suspect it varies between age groups - a lot of elderly people eat more ready meals for example because it is harder for them to cook.

Either way, it's probably true that on the whole we eat more ready meals than are good for us in the UK. Just look at how much space the ready meals take up in UK supermarkets. If you go to supermarkets in other countries they are not like this.

@peachespeachespeaches it was quite far back in the thread so I’ll quote here. The 90% figure is really 24% either the book misleading or I interpreted it wrong.

It’s neither to what I said although this thread would like to convince me I am unreasonable and the 90% figure to be expected…!

Aah OK, thanks for clarifying.

I have been a bit dubious about that book to be honest (Ultra-processed people), I haven't read it but to me it does look a bit sensationalist, and over-inflating statistics like this just solidifies that in my mind, so I won't be reading it.

I do recommend a book called 'Why we eat (too much)' which I thought was a good overview of UPF's and maybe a bit more scientific.