To think peoples lives are crap enough without needing the government to interfere with Meal Deals

[Jeansmeansheinz]

FFS just let people have the pleasure of a Meal Deal. I really don't need the Government telling me what I can and can't eat.

500-600cal is actually absolutely fine for lunch. For many it's more sensible to consume a few more calories in the middle of the day and a few less from your evening meal. If you have a 600cal lunch and a 600cal dinner you're spot on, even taking breakfast into account. In fact 1500cal a day is rather spartan unless you're trying to lose weight.

So the government has the power to stop meal deals, but cannot tell supermarkets to cap / stabilise rocketing food prices?

I can actually see where they're coming from with this. I sometimes get a meal deal at lunchtime. Even though I know, in my head, that it's wrong, I tend to pick the most expensive of the options just to "get one over" on the supermarket, i.e. you have a choice of a 330ml can or 500ml bottle, so I take the bottle because individually it costs more, choice of Walkers crisps (cheaper and less calories) or McCoy (more expensive, more calories), so I chose the McCoys, and I tend to pick something like the all day breakfast sandwich because it's more expensive than the egg & cress or tuna. That's the "mental" message of getting more for less as seen from the receipt when there's a "meal deal discount" of £2 or £3 rather than it would only be 50p if I chose the individual cheaper/healthier options. As I say, I know it's crazy to think and act like that, but it is human nature to think you're getting something for nothing. It's human behaviour.

Rather than scrapping meal deals, if the Govt have to do anything, I'd say they should force something like a percentage discount instead, i.e. 20% off if you buy 3 meal deal items, so that you still get a real saving if you choose the cheaper options.

Supermarkets employ human behaviour analysts to design their BOGOFs, meal deals and other marketing ploys, so we need Govt to be more proactive and intelligent to curb the marketing that has potential for health problems.

Cooking from scratch is a fallacy. Yes it's better than eating takeaways every day...but it's very easy to become overweight or obese eating home cooked food. I can make a home made lasagna from scratch with lovely fresh ingredients and it will probably contain more calories than a ready made one.

The food processing/wholesale/retail industry is very clever and has designed itself to be within the rules of the monopolies/mergers commission etc.

That's why they do "retro" bonuses paid back by suppliers or "sell" prime shelving space to suppliers, etc. It's so they can show the M&M commission an invoice showing they pay 50p per tin of beans which they sell at 55p so it looks like they only make 5p profit per tin - perfectly reasonable. But then they get "kick backs" in other ways, such as tens of thousands of pounds for putting those tins of beans in the prime shelf (end of aisle, middle of stand, etc., rather than top/bottom shelf or a corner). Or they charge back the supplier tens of thousands if they hit sales targets. Lots of tricks like that which are designed solely to trick the regulators into making their pricing look sensible! Either the regulators are too thick to see what goes on, or they're in on the scams.

Yep. I gained weight and tipped myself into unhealthy for the first time when I was on maternity leave and cooking healthily from scratch for breastfeeding.

Weight gain is just so much more complex than chugging coke and gulping sandwiches.

The only way I will get behind a tax on unhealthy food is if they use that money to lower the cost of healthy food. And yes you can live off chickpeas that are cheap but lots of people would rather good quality meat and veg and that shouldn't be beyond the reach of anyone.

This, with bells on. It is so tediously predictable that the current Government would come up with an "initiative" like this. Yes, rising rates of obesity and weight related health issues need to be tackled. But they're not commitimg to taking meaningful steps to stabilise the rocketing costs of decent quality food, or addressing the causes of poverty and poor Mental Health which are often linked to obesity, or properly funding health services so they can focus on prevention and early intervention to help people to manage their weight before they become clinically obese. No, let's make Meal Deals more expensive...that'll sort it. This is nothing more than paying lip-service.

I would happily pay more tax on unhealthy food if I believed for a second that it would be used to subsidise healthy food, or anything at all that was even vaguely useful and in the best interests of people's health and wellbeing. I have no confidence that this is the case at all.

@ModernLifelsRubbish - most meal deals will have the following. Stabilisers, preservatives, high levels of sugar and fat. It's a crap UPF sandwich with a chocolate bar and crisps.

Now that is just the food industry selling a highly processed product to you. All of this stuff is on the label.

If I go to a sandwich shop, they make it from scratch for me. That's not junk. But what Boots or say Tesco are selling is. Yes there will be people saying I eat sushi and carrot sticks. But who sees tons of that? What you see in the majority of cases is sandwiches (with bread made with palm oil and sugar for taste), whatever filing which will also have preservatives and taste enhancers included, and that is before you get to the chocolate or crisps. Those last two are very cheap to make, highly fatty and definitely are junk. They have calories. Their nutritional value is very small.

Wow! I had no idea!

Realistically, so many things are contributing to society's obesity and other health issues.

School games/sports only really work for the sporty/team kids - they put off those who are less fit or who don't like team sports. Most games teachers are the team sports lovers/bullies of 20 years ago, so the problem just perpetuates from generation to generation. We need a whole new attitude to exercise in schools, concentrating more on alternatives such as gym work, yoga, "solo" sports/exercise, so that the less "sporty" ones who can't do well in team games can do other things. I hated sports at school and ended up pretty inactive, but in later life, I've done all kinds of "non team" sports, such as golf, swimming, squash, tennis, skiing, cycling, walking, etc and found I was actually pretty good at them and enjoyed them.

School cookery is a shambles. When I was at school 40 years ago, it was all bakery, i.e. scones, cakes, etc. When my son was at school 10 years ago, it was all curries, vegetarian/vegan, etc. One extreme to the other. How about teaching basics/fundamentals such as how to make a roast dinner, how to cook a chicken, how to make a lasagne/cottage pie, etc?

NHS dietary advice is pathetic. I have diabetes and have had "consultations" with several NHS dieticians and diabetic nurse specialists. None have given me any workable/sensible eating options. All their advice is "eat more lentils", or "have fruit and nuts for breakfast" - basic text book "advice" more or less just regurgitating what their guidance books say. But absolutely zero practical advice! For someone with no interest in lentils or nuts for breakfast, I need someone with more realistic advice. In the real world, due to caring and work commitments, I'm going to eat something from a packet in the morning, and probably an evening meal including something from a tin. When I've said this and asked for advice as to which kind of breakfast packet cereal is best, or which tinned soup is best, they can't answer - they just go back to their "lentils and nuts" speech. Yes, I know whatever Kelloggs packet I have at breakfast time isn't perfect, but in reality, it's what I'm going to have, so I'd like to know which would be best to minimise diabetic issues. They can't answer because they don't know. I've had to work it out for myself by trial and error, checking my blood sugar levels after each type, likewise with tinned food. The NHS "specialists" aren't in the real world, and that's why the "healthy eating" message isn't working - they're just parroting the "perfect world" options rather than real life/practical options which would help!

Absolutely. Plus it's easy to go back for seconds or to have larger portions than a measured, 450cal single serving ready meal one. Also you can monitor the salt and fat content more easily (don't tell me that everyone who cooks from scratch counts the saturated fat/salt in every ingredient, for every meal they make).

Ready meals are often seen as the devil incarnate but chosen carefully they can be a boon, particularly to those who can't cook from scratch for any number of reasons (disability, coat, older people, etc).

When I lost my five stone a ready made low fat cannelloni or fish pie was a staple, served with a bucket of fresh veg.

Yup! It’s not lost on me that this Government have been the harbingers of austerity, chipped away at NHS funding and pushing towards privatisation and profiteering. Been shamed by footballers to give poor children free lunch meals and food banks have become normalised and are a photo op for MPs and Royals, but meal deals are the problem! 😂

A fruit salad is lunch? I thought it was dessert. And I'm not sure how I'm meant to sit at my desk chopping fruit...

I don't eat any of that when I buy a meal deal. I was talking about my choices. I check the salt and sugar content scrupulously (health reasons for doing this).

A sandwich shop will still be using processed ingredients, including bread. And when I buy my lunches I see plenty of healthy looking people buying sushi and the like. When the Boots Meal deal was launched many years ago it was marketed as a healthy lunch choice and it absolutely still can be.

My health has improved drastically thanks to my new diet but I absolutely knew there would be someone along to tell me how unhealthy my diet is 😂

I look forward to the subsidised meals and bars in Parliament being closed down. Alcohol and caviar are just empty calories and we need to be concerned about of the health of our dear leaders!

It is so tediously predictable that the current Government would come up with an "initiative" like this

When you say current government you mean Labour in Wales?

It’s just Wales that are doing this. Stopping BOGOF has been postponed in rest of U.K.

Tell me that again when you've had it leak all over your work laptop whilst travelling between sites.

Drakeford is awful I agree. I pity Wales having him as their leader. His behaviour during Covid was woeful.

Bread (unless you're making your own bread from scratch) is UPF.

Cheese can be UPF.

Cured meat is UPF.

Supermarket sandwiches don't have scary chemicals in them that other sandwiches somehow magically don't have.

The comments here about pre-packaged sandwiches vs homemade/sandwich shop sandwiches show that people really don't understand what UPF are or the science behind them.

I'm making roast pork belly for dinner tonight with roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and apple sauce, all from scratch. I can guarantee it will have more calories in it than a burger and fries from McDonald's.

Agreed. MIL always makes a big thing about how great she used to be always cooking from scratch until she reached her 80s and couldn't do it anymore.

Her and FIL are both obese with diabetes. Huge portions and lots of home made puddings combined with little exercise will do that for you.

Ready meals do at least give you dietary information these days so you are aware when your portion size is ridiculously high in calories or fat/sugar/salt etc. She always claims she doesn't eat much but she does. I also notice at home that when we have home cooked food my husband and son will routinely have seconds where available. This is not possible when we have ready meals and they are content with the amount they have eaten once they leave the table.

Funnily enough walking has always worked for me, at any stage of my life. With the amount I eat I should be huge, but I'm not because I walk everywhere and go for a long walk every day. Any time I have started to walk more than usual I have lost weight.

There’s also a huge amount of seed oils in UPF. If you look into the side effects of seed oils, the studies on weight gain etc, it’s very enlightening.

I stick to butter, extra virgin olive oil (I drink 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the juice of a lemon and a teaspoon of turmeric and cayenne pepper each morning, it’s amazing), and cook with coconut oil or ghee for curries.

Do you know the amount of people in my life have told me that I will definitely die of a heart attack? Usually while they are stuffing down some processed crap or something made of sugar or fake sugar that I haven’t touched in years.

My mother in law gets very worried about that, and pulls faces that my children eat good fats.

She’s deeply entrenched in the view that vegetable oils or those awful 1 cal spray oils are the healthiest. She’s been losing and gaining the same stone and feeling tired and like crap at weight watchers for a decade living off their fake food bars and ready meals. I’ll stick with what I’m doing.

@Comedycook - true. But I bet you don't eat it every day as some do with McDonalds, and it will have much greater nutritional value than McDonalds. I bet that you are also reasonably active and have a balanced diet. But 60 percent of the country appear to be struggling with that one because they are overweight.

If you eat a high fat diet of mostly junk food it can be very bad for your liver. Effectively it can become fatty, like pate. For a lot of people, eating high fat food is a daily habit.

Totally agree.

I hated PE at school too and it's taken me years to find things I enjoy because in my own mind I was someone not suited to any kind of exercise.

And the NHS dietary advice should be more pragmatic and accept no one's perfect (even the people regurgitating the "perfect" advice are sometimes overweight so they should know). I aim for making small steps in the right direction and that's more likely to be successful than trying to completely overhaul my diet and lifestyle.