To think processed and pre cooked food is way too common in this country?

[HotPotLove]

Before you all start yelling at me, I know that there are of course millions of households that eat a healthy diet, cook from scratch all the time, carefully choose ingredients etc etc. But my feeling as a foreigner (have been living in the UK for almost a decade though) is that ultra processed food, pre cooked and ready meals etc are very much normalised here and part of most people every day life. It’s pretty obvious just by looking at the supermaket aisles really.
Curious to know if people are generally trying to stay away from these and make healthier choices or whether it is generally so embedded into our lives that we are not even noticing?
Second disclaimer is that I am not pointing any fingers, infact I often buy these myself but what makes me think about this is that I would have never bought these types of meals when living back in my own country (also less available than here overall)

It's a base. You choose your carbohydrate. You add whatever proteins and spices and herbs you like.

It's a very popular way to eat pasta in Italy - basically with sauteed seasonal vegetables stirred through. It lets the flavours of the vegetables shine through.

But ... nobody's saying you have to eat it or like it. The point is that people who know how to cook some simple standbys to their own taste escape the trap of ready meals vs slaving for hours over elaborate sauces etc. There's obviously a middle ground.

This is one of 100 examples the OP could have chosen. I'd be more likely to use kale or broccoli, maybe with tinned or fresh fish, maybe with chili or paprika or fennel, maybe with Parmesan, maybe with pine nuts etc - none of which would take any longer.

Or I could just make mashed potatoes, fry a chop and add a couple of veg, with about another five minutes' effort. There's a lot to be said for keeping things simple, though I accept that people need to know what they are doing in the kitchen first.

Yes - I live 90% UPF free from Lidl most weeks - and could make it 100% if I could be bothered baking bread and cake. Lots of people loading up on fresh veg at Lidl too, whenever I'm there.

Pasta isn't that healthy, though. It's a simple carb and also...processed.

@SeagullSam2027

Not everyone has the luxury of choosing where to shop, especially for fresh produce. Economically deprived households/social housing tenants often have to rely on on local corner type shops (which generally have limited or poor quality stock) as there is nothing else nearby - not even a Tesco Express...

I used to say (and believe) exactly this 20 years ago but I wonder if it’s a bit outdated now tbh. Now Tesco express etc is everywhere and corner shops have been disappearing in their droves for 20 years now.

I couldn't give a shit, old and still here in fine fettle

OP is not « bashing the UK » though. On the other hand, you asking where she is from to find something negative to say about it would be bashing.

There are things that are better in the UK than elsewhere and things that are worse. Same with most countries.

‘Sometimes I wonder how people manage to watch hours of TV in the evening when, as you mentioned, they come home from work, sort out the kids, and still need to eat. It makes me think that for some, convenience has become the top priority , so they can spend the rest of the evening sitting on the sofa doing absolutely nothing’

To this part, I’d say I leave work at 6, having been there since 7.30, and up since 5, and when I get home, I’m genuinely completely exhausted. The absolute last thing I feel like doing is cooking. I’m also a single parent, which means that as well as working full time, every other aspect of looking after the house and the children has fallen to me. I do cook. But also probably use some convenience foods. I just don’t have the bandwidth to do more than I do already. My kids both seem fine- healthy, active and not overweight.

The insinuation (from lots of posters) that everyone is just a bit too lazy, is, I think, a bit of a generalisation. We don’t know everything about everyone’s lives. I could not be less lazy, but in order to survive (and still be mentally well and able to look after and provide for my children), I have to choose to cut some corners.

@ObelixtheGaul pasta is not classed as processed, it's literally just flour and water?

I do not understand how 'time poor' can work in terms of preferring to use UPF.
In my freezer are quite a few 'ready meals' aka something I cooked masses of but froze the surplus.
CBA to cook tonight, so we are having fish pie from the freezer (taken out this morning to thaw) with home grown carrots and frozen peas. Easy peasy and will take 5 mins prep/intervention & 25m of unsupervised cooking to cook. Whereas microwave ready meals for 4 of us you are forever wacking stuff in the microwave and working out timings. Needs supervision for 20-25 minutes and that's aside from specifically shopping for it.
Non freezer, I always have mince - defrost 3 mins microwave then cook, pasta/spaghetti tinned tomatoes and frozen chopped onions and basil from the garden & grated cheese = spag bol in 20 mins.

A lot of ready meals can be done in the oven.

Whenever I’m in a European supermarket, the ‘lack’ of ready meals / over processed stuff is very obvious.

Which can be inconvenient when you’re self catering in a limited kitchen, or just don’t want to go through the expense of buying herbs and spices for a few meals, but it’s by far the healthier way of living.

Durum wheat pasta is a complex carb. Its also minimally processed with very few ingredients. Anything with more than one ingredient is processed. Pasta is not unhealthy. Often what people pile on it, is!

I don’t get your logic at all. If I buy a ready made fish pie I don’t need to dedicate time- ever- to making one. Surely that’s the very definition of convenience?! Time poor= ideally spend zero time on cooking a fish pie

I was really surprised to see that pasta isn't fortified, yet white flour always is (by law). I wonder how they get round that?

Edited after Googling to answer my own question. Pasta is apparently made from unbleached flour, so fortification isn't needed. Every day is a school day!

You can buy wholegrain pasta

There is a really easy no-knead bread recipe I use on Youtube that means I effortlessly make it two or even three times a week (or just once and freeze the extra). I make them into rolls or pannini type shapes rather than a whole loaf. They are so simple that I haven’t bought bread for weeks.

Much of the north of the UK, particularly west, it's basically rocks with a thin layer of earth and you're lucky if you can grow potatoes.

You're making it sound as though Northern Britain is some barren wasteland! Most of it is good for growing some but not all crops, much like anywhere else. Large parts of Sicily and Calabria are very barren, with frequent droughts, which is why it's traditionally been very poor. That hasn't prevented it developing a very strong food culture, but that's not due to any great wealth of natural resources.

Processed doesn’t mean ultra processed, it just means you can’t grow it as is or you’re putting two or more things together.

Eg butter. It’s just churned milk but the churning is a process.

I don’t think you need to call me pathetic over this.

I agree with you to some extent, we do need to think about it globally. However because we are quite an isolated country most of the things we can do to change it are by changing our policies, laws and culture.

May I just say one word re. ready meals - SALT.
Got some meat pies from QVC recently - they were so, so salty - like someone had had an accident and dropped a salt cellar into them. But the reviews were all that they were v. good and not a word about excessive salt!
Actually I find all ready meals very salt.
However there are many people in UK who are old, frail, sick, disabled and live alone who are martyrs to the dreaded ready meal as they can't cope with home cooking any more; have all groceries delivered and can just about manage to stagger from the fridge or freeze to microwave with over salted ready meals. So don't know how people like this eat in Italy/Spain - I suppose relatives cook for them.

This is what I said earlier on the thread about language being important.

Most people on this thread are switched on regarding food choices etc yet not clear about UPF compared to processed (cheese, yoghurt, pasta, frozen peas)

There's many posts saying about information being freely available but if someone wishing to improve their diet mistakenly thought it was processed food that needed avoiding, they may not bother at all if they thought that any simple food ingredients need to be avoided.

One of the reasons I don’t like most convenience foods is the over saltiness or sweetness of the products. Also I just can’t justify the prices anymore.

I lived in Italy for 6 years and (tbh) I was happy to come back to the UK.

Italy is beautiful and I love going back there, but there are many things that I found difficult: people not paying taxes; horrendous costs of car and house insurance; limited awareness of other cultures etc etc.

BUT - there is no denying that people eat far less rubbish food there (at the moment - it will be interesting to see if that starts to change). Sorry if you don't like that or can't accept it, but generally Italians have far more interest in - and understanding of - food than we do.

A saying that I often heard there was "Spend on the food, save on the doctor". In my experience very few people in this country think about food like that - as a way of staying healthy - it's all about cost and convenience.

So it's not about Britain's 'faults' - it's just interesting to see how different countries do things and what we can maybe learn from them.