Are my dinners rubbish?

[Sowhatbigdeal]

Been told they are

Here’s an example of an average week, more or less:

Monday (I work at 6, so do something simple)

Feta & red onion salad with new potatoes & rice

Tuesday

Pasta with jar pesto (working today)

Wednesday

Dh to do omlette/eggs on toast with salad (working today)

Thursday

Salmon, salad, new potatoes

Friday

Homemade chilli with rice, nachos & dips

Saturday

Takeaway

Sunday

Roast dinner/homemade lasagne

Are they?

Sorry but I wouldn’t be excited to eat those meals. Is it the same every week? We get gousto delivered every week and always have something different each week. I get 5 meals delivered a week and nothing takes more than 40 mins to make and cook.

We have salmon with sweet potato and broccoli. Mainly because my three year old wouldn't eat salad. They have salad at nursery a couple of times a week but she doesn't eat it (unless it's cucumber salad, which is literally just cucumber slices in a salad dressing, or carrot salad - grated carrots, grated apple and lemon juice). New potatoes are fine but I get to count sweet potato as a vegetable 😂.

But costs a lot more money than cooking your own food.

Honestly OP I think your meals are fine. In the real world most some children regularly refuse salad (when I serve salad for DS’s friends (13) most of them don’t eat any of it / pick out the one veg they like.
they also all would just like to eat burgers and pizza and no-one wants my lentil bolognaise / bean chilli.

and for those who whizz up a 13 veg pasta sauce in the blender- it doesn’t really have the same impact on your gut health as the fibre has been broken down and is basically a sugary sauce (just with veg instead of refined sugar). For this reason one of the recipe books I have (eat your way to ten a day) says soup and smoothies only ever count as one of your five a day.

And honestly for me, 40 minutes is too long to spend cooking every day. I have so many other things I'd rather be doing.

Well luckily I found out that my fit watch thing, records steps when Im sweeping up and blow drying my hair, so bring it on!!

Well it isnt of course. Dont feed the nonsense by even asking!

You're not the OP.

She said she didn't live in the UK.

I asked where she lives.

@Sowhatbigdeal Go to the website Zoe and look at their website under 'Library' - get meal ideas.

There is no definite list. It's any fruit , veg, spices, herbs, nuts, certain beverages, etc but you can't count the same ones twice in the week.

Yes. An omelette for dinner is not enough unless I have had a substantial lunch, for example. I wouldn't consider that enough. Pasta and pesto is nice, but needs protein of some sort or I will be hungry later and tempted to snack on something (hopefully fruit but possibly cheese). The menu given is not a balanced diet, despite the description given by OP of very nice salads.
So if I had an omelette it would be a Spanish omelette (so lots of carbs) with a substantial salad probably containing cheese - but/and I would put cheese in the omellette) and a pudding afterwards. I'd have a baked potato with it as well, filled with baked beans.
If I wanted not to do all that I would have perhaps poached salmon, new potatoes (several, no butter) or home-made chips (from one large potato if only serving me), and two or three vegetables (peas/broccolli/spinach etc) along with mushrooms and an egg (fried or poached) and very likely tomatoes (raw).

Oh I didn’t know that. I know juice is only one count as much of the fibre doesn’t make it in. But I thought so long as the whole veg/fruit went into the food item it still counted. My understanding was that fibre is slightly more molecular than we think of it; ie; it doesn’t need to be in a bulky form as if we have swallowed a scrubbing brush ( even though we tend to think of something scratchy and bulky being what “ cleans us out.”

The reason I thought this was that I had a cousin who when aged about two or three declined to open their bowels. There used to be ( memorable) chases round the house get them to eat their prune bar, which was made more entertaining by the fact we all thought my aunt was shouting “poo bar.” But there was also a sprinkly bran which was like a powder but apparently contained all the fibre needed to start the action.

Forty minutes isn't long but most of what I cook from scratch takes twenty to thirty minutes.

Each to their own, but honestly, I couldn't be bothered to spend that much time cooking every single day.

I know I'm a real anomaly on MN though as everyone seems to spend hours cooking and/or baking constantly, lol.

Just nosy. What do you eat, then?

I'm autistic so my diet is pretty limited, but mostly things like soup (the chilled supermarket ones), toast with various toppings, sandwiches, pizzas or basic salads and things like that, or oven food basically.

Well talking of fibre, does everyone get their full amount of fibre. This can be another shaming device and thing to worry over.

I might start bringing it up on multiple threads.

Over the course of the week, there's a variety, but on a daily basis, it needs more. Pesto pasta has very little nutritional value, no veg, no protein. If you were to add grated cheese or feta and serve with eg tomato salad, it's not much more effort.

The full amount is quite high. I’ve tried it a couple of times and my sphincter area felt quite quivery. I think it could vary from person to person . So long as you go daily I wouldn’t worry.

Sounds fine to me. I eat those things sometimes - not toast, though - as it's simple and easy esp after a frantic day or I am hurrying out. Thanks for curing my curiosity.

No worries @Grammarnut- toast is mostly my extremely lazy option when there’s either nothing else in or I’ve had an overly “on” day and just need something quick!

I love toast.

I especially love darker rye sourdough type toast. You can put do many things on it to make a great meal: eggs, avocado, smoked salmon, tomato, hummus. Even beans - and it’s really easy to make your own with tinned beans and tinned tomatoes to dodge the salt etc of ready made beans in sauce.Yum!

Okay @Calliopespa now you’re making me hungry - toast for tea it is 🤣

Yes, of course I'm not the OP but I was just giving an example of how, despite living quite rurally, the nearest available fruit and veg by miles is the supermarket in the nearest town.
Back in my box now.

Yeah sorry.

I’m thinking the same! I’ve got some sourdough and avocados and tomatoes but an now battling an overwhelming desire to sneak out for a naughty wodge of soft cheese to put with it!