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)

Something else I have noticed is that basic food is not cheaper in the rest of Europe. Vegetables, pasta, pulses, etc is as if not more expensive than in the UK. The difference is that many Europeans are happy to pay more for eating well, whereas in the Uk more people budget when doing their food shop and end up choosing cheaper ingredients and low quality meat. I acknowledge the cost of living crisis and food poverty affect many people in the UK. However I also believe that eating cheaply is also a choice for others who could afford to eat better.

A tomato sauce using canned/tinned tomatoes, dried herbs, something green and a few mushrooms is easy peasy and does not take hours. Carbonara slightly more skill, creamy esque pasta using Philadelphia or equiv less skill. The latter means you need to use up soft cheese for your sarnies, no probs. There are also numerous pasta sauce options using fresh or jarred ingredients. Fresh tomatoes tossed through with a bit of veg, quick and simple

Totally agree - capitalism on the part of the seller and entitlement on the part of us. Somehow we think we are entitled to eat meat, fish, cheese whenever we feel like it. Or good bread. And because we feel entitled to it, capitalism provides - I remember a loaf of white at 24 pence in the early 1990s. And at the same time - Borodinsky bread from Selfridges, from the Village Bakery by Andrew Whitley. And yes, there is no difference between Tesco vegetable section and Le Grand Epicerie's this summer, I could not believe it.

To be honest, I have seen some of the 'healthy' and especially 'hygienic' things people cook at home and I shall take ready meals any day, thank you. And of course you are right, we must not forget that healthy and wonderful meat, vegetables, pulses and everything else people cook at home are grown on a different, pure and pesticide-and anything-free planet, whilst awful ready meals are produced from deep-fried scrapings of whatever, and they are full of hormones and pesticides, unlike the home-made wonders.

I’m 50 and we had occasional, one-off cooking lessons at school but it certainly wasn’t part of scheduled lessons.

School meals consisted of two very rubbery slices of bread filled with barely enough to be visible tuna and half a slice of cucumber followed by chocolate toothpaste cake. Looking back I’m horrified at our 80s school meals. It was a fucking disgrace.

I believe traditional home economics classes should be brought back and include not only cooking but a number of other life skills. Maths classes should include teaching about mortgages, interest rates, taxes etc. The stuff pretty much every student will need to know at some point as opposed to some of the irrelevant projects we did that maybe became useful to one or two members of the class at best. Usually people moan that this is the stuff parents should be teaching but for whatever reason in many cases they’re not and we can’t keep turning out increasingly ill-equipped for life adults, unable to cook basic meals or perform other household tasks with a reasonable amount of confidence or competence.

You're not wrong, but for most people I know, it's not the case. I have a takeaway once a month, and I haven't bought a ready meal for nearly 10 years 😀
I did most of the cooking for my kids when they were growing up (I was a single parent for thelr teenage years) and simply couldn't afford ready meals, and didn't want them anyway

I make mine with passata (just tomatoes & citric acid) oregano, garlic, basil & pepper. Takes 15 mins. I used to use tinned tomatoes but my DH can’t have the pips because of a medical condition and I got fed up with sieving them. Taught to me by my Italian MIL.

Children need proteins, fiber and carbohydrates when young. It’s not hard to do at all

I agree, I have family who live in Spain and ready meals were not used very much and it was a much smaller section of the supermarket. Most people cooked from scratch but the lifestyle and values were very different as well.

I think it’s a combination of of time and education. I have friends with children who simply don’t know how to cook. If they’re making pasta, it’s a jar of dolmio sauce. Regular dinner is something frozen that’s chucked in the airfryer. I think because I was raised by a Mother who always cooked from scratch (she was a chef) and taught me to cook its second nature to me. But it’s not that easy for a lot of people…

if you only have £20 to feed 4 people for 3
days, it doesn’t matter how long a £3 bottle of olive oil lasts, you can’t afford it. You can buy a huge bag of chicken nuggets and a huge bag of oven chips for £3 each and have enough food for a meal every day. It’s long been established that poverty is expensive, so people just want to be able to feed their kids.

My dad eats a lot of ready meals. He lives alone and often can't be bothered to cook. I can see the point, one of his favourite meals is liver and bacon with mash on the side.

He can buy one from the supermarket or he can get a couple of pans out and cook but it involves more washing up and use of fuel.

When he visits me he claims he 'get's spoiled', what he means is that I cook for him.

He was very much brought up with inners of meat and two veg. I'm trying to get him to eat more of a variety of foods, but it is hard. A pasta with a few tomatoes would be his idea of hell.

I don’t think Italians are as interested in eating cuisine from other countries as Brits are. They seem to be happy with pasta and pizza.
You can buy ready meals in virtually every type of cuisine you can think of. This may add to the appeal?

No, OP is just stating the bleeding obvious!

Pasta is great, quick and simple, olio and aglio, food of the gods. But let's not kid ourselves, you can also fry off a chicken breast and dump a load of salad leaves on a plate in 20 mins. Good, basic cooking is not difficult, or time consuming.

I'm type 2 diabetic and have to now cook from scratch as anything ready made is too high in salt/fat/sugar. And it took some time for my taste buds to adjust to not having that "hit" you get from convenience foods. I am so much healthier for it. It worries me sick what DD feeds herself and her kids.

Thinking about the biggest family I've known in the last 20 years, they cooked from scratch because 2 chickens was cheaper than chicken pieces for 11.

I think part of it is that many people have a limited palette and stick to bland as it's easy to eat.

I could have written this. I'd say DF cooks from scratch 50% of the time.

Though he did have frozen lasagne last week. With a side of cauliflower, carrots and beans 😆

Not wishing to be pedantic but carbonara is one of the easiest meals to make. It requires very little skill.

Part of the problem is the attitude that 'cooking is hard'.

It's not. Some dishes are more complex and require more skill but cooking basic, nutritious, healthy meals is really simple.

I consider myself to be a good cook. And I make a great carbonara (according to my family 😆), but I do consider it tricky.

There's more to it in terms of getting the timing/temperature right than a lot of other dishes.

On the flip side, it is fast. It's a great, quick, midweek meal.

You CAN buy black beans in a can that contains just black beans (and some water), no additive - eg the organic ones made by Suma (which the Co-op stocks). But they're not as cheap as the other brands.
https://www.suma-store.coop/products/suma-wholefoods/suma-organic-black-beans---400g/?utm_source=rss=rss=rssfeed

It's always going to work out cheaper to buy dry beans, soak and cook them - and if you then freeze them, they're easy to use at short notice (but this entails having a freezer). I suspect a lot of people don't do this, as it's never been the norm for them and they weren't ever taught...

...one exception being people whose families migrated to the UK from other places, where it was more normal to grow/store your own legumes, fruit & veg, or buy them in their whole, unprocessed form.

Longtimelurkerfinallyposts

Yes, it's like coconut milk. Some have 80+% coconut. Some contain as little as 50+%.

The 50+% one is obviously cheaper. But also contains a lot more crap.

If anyone has a recommendation for a really high quality coconut milk, I'd love to hear it please!

It is but it's also one of the first meals my daughter rlearned to make.

And yes, we do it 'properly'.

I used to get one in my local Asian food store. Can't remember the name but if you have such a store nearby have a look. Have a look at Biona brand too.

They are normalised but at the same time they’re not something I’m bothered about. I do think that people unnecessarily worry about them.