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)

And my point wasn’t around eating that x3 a day and 7 days a week! It was in reply yo the fact that people above said a nice place of pasta takes hours to cook necause of the sauce etc. So mine was a suggestion to show that you can put a healthy and tasty meal together in 10 min when you are time and budget poor instead of having to rely on a ready meal etc. I didn’t think it was hard to get it

I am pretty lazy but cook from scratch every night unless it’s pizza.

That said my son survives entirely on pasta, fish fingers, chips and fruit. He doesn’t eat anything else and would literally rather starve.

Exactly

If you don’t mind sharing what country you’re from then I’m certain I can think of something negative to say about it. Of course, you won’t take it as an insult…!
The amount of Brit-bashing threads on MN is getting really tedious now.

A lot of people simply cannot cook and got no desire to learn.
I know someone who is constantly cooking sausages and burgers in airfryer, most day as week and thats all she feeds her tennage daughter. She can’t cook and won’t learn. It’s shocking.

@CoubousAndTourmaIet

It's true. But people here are in denial and won't thank you for saying it. It's almost becoming a taboo subject lately.

I agree, eating crap and obesity are major issues and need tackling. Our health system is already in crisis due to obesity related illnesses such as T2 diabetes, heart disease, etc. which not also costs the country to treat them, but also in disability benefits if their conditions are bad enough that they're unable to work.

Yet all we get is being criticised for "fat shaming"!

I have a school photo from the early 80s showing literally only one overweight kid in our class. Today's class photos of same age at same school (as per local social media) shows over half as being overweight and probably a quarter obese.

It's not healthy and we shouldn't be shying away from calling it out - but at a national level, not individual insults. Our politicans should be tackling it but are clearly in hoc to the global processed food producing firms and their lobbyists to stop any action.

Yes 100%. Most fruit and veg tasteless as imported from the other side of the world so all the additives, the traveling time, the fact that they are picked too early (ripen at home) have a massive impact on taste.

Yep.
Plus a lot of people from less advantaged backgrounds don't know how to cook from scratch.
Bags of dried pulses, dented cans of tomatoes, fresh onions etc are cheap to buy, but require knowledge and confidence to make into something tasty.

@HotPotLove - I suspect that it’s down to a mixture of people having lost the skill of cooking from scratch - when I was a kid, we learned cookery in senior school, which helped people learn the vocabulary and skills of cooking, but that has pretty much stopped now, I think - and then people who are time-poor. People are working long hours, and in many families, both parents have to work, so coming home and cooking a meal from scratch is just too time consuming and too much work.

So sad

Yup, been saying it for years. When we're abroad, we immediately notice how much more tastier are the fruit and veg and we eat lots fresh stuff mostly raw! Back in the UK, it's all tasteless crap so we eat less as there's just no flavour and no enjoyment and it all needs covering with sauces etc to give it any flavour and make it edible.

Ah, you mean no meat 😏

I’ve made this kind of thing plenty of times with any old cherry tomatoes and it’s always lovely. There’s garlic and herbs and oil for extra flavour. We do this either with normal pasta or with tortellini, it’s so quick. It isn’t a “coats all the pasta with lots of tomato” type sauce, but there’s lots of flavour and freshness.

I think you mean ultra processed

Many staple foods are single ingredient and processed like cheese, yoghurt, tinned tuna, frozen peas and are healthy choices.

It's just setting the bar too high if advocating a healthy diet to avoid processed food.

Similarly I get irked by folks going on about fresh food. Frozen is fine in many cases, cheaper and harvested and frozen so quickly. The prime example is peas. If from a supermarket peas in pods have been sitting around in transport, on shelves etc and the natural sugars have turned to starch and an inferior product. Only truly fresh if you have picked them and used them quickly.

If people get the idea that to be healthy a food has to be fresh rather than frozen, this puts many healthy foods out of the price range of many unnecessarily. See also berries, French/green beans, fish etc

I really think the words matter.

I have already said I am from Italy. And your comment is frankly quite appalling. This isn’t a “let’s insult each other countries” competition. It is just a thread about food habits in the UK. What is the purpose of bashing my home country about something completely unrelated to this topic?

It’s not Brit bashing. OP has said she uses the ready meals herself. It’s completely fair to point out they’re more common here than plenty of other countries - they are. They’re more common here than they were 30 years ago too. It is what it is.

I am also originally from Italy and I notice in the supermarkets there are more processed foods available than when I was a child.

There are quite a lot of pre packaged lentil/soup bases which i don't see as much in the UK but would be super handy with the UK weather.

Yes indeed, I was referring to ultra processed and ready meals.

I’m sure that is true @IHateWasps

We need to acknowledge what is happening and educate people on how to fuel themselves and their children on proper, unprocessed food. I still think elsewhere in Europe people generally eat more healthily but this may not last for long.

Why is my comment appalling? Because there’s a risk your country could be insulted?
I’m quite pissed off with the idea that bashing the UK is perfectly acceptable but unacceptable if it’s another country. Do you not see the irony?
You only have to glance on AIBU to see threads in a similar vain daily.
FYI, whenever I’ve been to Italy I’ve seen many obese people so I’m not certain your idea that the U.K. seems to exclusively have a high rate of obese people can be true.

I think years ago when many women worked part time or just in the home meals from scratch were the norm but withany women now working full time, driving DC around to school and clubs something has to give. Many people are time poor and I suppose throwing a ready meal in the microwave is a quick option. It's not just ready meals though it's the culture of giving kid a McDonald's as their meal too. I like to either cook from scratch or once or twice a week to eat out.

So, OP, why do you think UPF are becoming increasingly popular in countries like Greece, Spain and Italy? They have access to excellent local produce and have a strong food culture and yet processed foods are becoming increasingly popular. The problem may be bigger in the UK at the moment but it’s certainly not exclusive to here. It’s a trend that can be seen all over the world. Genuine question because I’d like to see countries investigating and treating the issue collectively as it’s affecting so many nations.

You're not wrong that it's common because I moved away from the UK and I really miss being able to buy these things. The pre made foods for sale here are mostly absolutely dire like something from the 1970s. They just aren't popular at all.

I don't actually think most pre-made foods/meals are ultra processed (though TBH it's not really a label I pay that much attention to). They are labour saving and tended to help me cook more often because if I can have part of a meal already made and don't need to spend time on that, I have more time/energy/effort to spend on the other parts of it.

Personally, nothing. I am just pointing out that it wasn’t part of a meal, it was the entire meal
i often have broccoli pasta with Parmesan

You make a lot of assumptions here about people's available income, available equipment, knowledge and confidence about food.

This is all fine if you have a hand blender, olives, roasted peppers or sun-dried tomatoes and Italian herbs (and yes I know you say 'if you have them', but it will be a lot less appealing and filling if you don't).
Garlic: many people won't know how to peel/chop it (I remember seeing a minor sleb on some cooking show who had no idea about how to skin a clove of garlic or chop it properly). Won't necessarily know you can buy jarred or frozen, or have the fridge or freezer space or the money for it.
As for meatballs/other protein, meat is either expensive, or cheap and shit quality. Again, what if you're not used to cooking with raw meat and scared of poisoning yourself/your family?
I'll never forget seeing a Jamie Oliver show where he taught a young woman to cook. She was lone parent to a little girl and she'd clearly had no exposure to food shopping or cooking; she bought them convenience foods (which they ate sitting on their living room floor as she couldn't afford furniture). When he started showing her how to make something (I think it was a basic tomato sauce or similar) she froze and said, 'I can't do it.' She just had zero knowledge or confidence.

These things seem straightforward to someone who has more advantages, but I think you might be surprised at how disadvantaged many people are.