AIBU to be annoyed that supermarkets are adding cheese to everything?

[IdentifyingAsAWoollyMammoth]

Why is it that supermarkets have decided to put cheese in bloody everything? Once upon a time, a salmon en croute was just in a white wine sauce; now you can't find one without cheese in the sauce.

Sainsbury's added cheese to several ready meals, such as chicken arrabbiata, so had to switch to Tesco for when I wanted that and a couple of other ready meals for when I don't have time to cook or I've run out of batch cooked stuff.

Today, I really fancied a chicken arrabbiata having been in a car accident last night, aching all over, tired and grumpy, and really don't want to cook tonight. Guess what? Tesco have also now added cheese to it.

Bad enough being lactose intolerant without supermarkets making things even more difficult. And some people just don't like cheese at all, or don't like melted cheese (I mean, cottage pie with cheese on top??).

Why not leave things as they were? If you want cheese, you can just sprinkle it on yourself.

Cheese great, gravy a big no, a lot of ready meals with the awful stuff, cooking has to be fairly easy due to my Parkinson’s , pre chopped veg, fab.
omlettes and poached eggs both cheese free

Please read my post a few posts above yours to understand why your post makes me feel inadequate. Yes I am a bit lazy in cooking but mostly I hate having a disability

Everyone eats ready meals. Take no notice of the 'I make everything from scratch every single day' brigade. Nice if you've got the time, the money, the mobility, non-fussy eaters and a wonderfully fitted kitchen, but for real people - ready meals are a lifesaver.

Yes, not ideal for three meals a day every day, but that won't be what most of us mean by 'eating ready meals'. I have plenty of time, money and mobility but still think you can't beat a M&S Butter Chicken curry now and again (which does not, to the best of my knowledge, have any cheese at all in it, because, butter.)

Tesco do an arrabiatta sauce in the pasta chiller section that's not bad, you could do that over cooked pasta, if you get the fresh pasta too it only takes a couple of minutes to cook.

Whilst I agree ready meals should not be a regular thing, it's reasonable to occasionally want/need something quick that isn't beans on toast

I'm lactose intolerant to and yes, it's very annoying! I adore cheese, I agree cheese makes everything better, but smash pain then 2 hours of diarrhoea 3 hours after eating it does not make everything better. Btw OP, not all cheese has lactose. Very mature cheddar (the type that's got the crystallised crunchy bits all through it), parmesan type cheeses aged over 18 months, most blue cheeses, high bacteria cheeses like Brie and many Scandinavian cheeses don't have any at all (lactose is a sugar that's unique to dairy and in these cheeses either that sugar breaks down into harmless compounds by the time we eat it or the bacteria/mould eats it), so if every option has cheese try for one of those rather than the extremely high in lactose cheeses like mozarella and ricotta.

‘You are welcome’ in this kind of context always reads to me like the person is sticking two fingers up at the OP in derision.

There's nothing wrong with ready meals at all but no, everyone does not eat them. They're much more expensive than cooking basic food from scratch. I haven't eaten one for about 15 years, and I don't spend much time cooking each week at all. If I don't want to cook for long I make a quick pasta dish (carbonara, alfredo, arrabiata, and puttanesca sauces all take less time to prep than pasta takes to boil, and if I'm really lazy I just have spaghetti with olive oil, garlic and lemon).

Edited to add - I am disabled, low paid, working class and time poor so it's not a luxury either!

And in any case, decent ready meals aren't cramming one with UPFs anyway. An M&S cottage pie is pretty nourishing.
Cheap salami pizza with umpteen dips, chips, and Coke: that’s iffy.

Fair dos.
But you should concede that some people, some of the time or once in a blue moon, may have trudged through a truly Hellish day, may be feeling knackered and incapable of much thought or action once inside the door. May be thinking only of a bath and their bed, and asap.
Whacking a decent dinner into the microwave would be what we all now regard as self-care really. Setting her (‘she’ being the usual career-frazzled woman, possibly a police inspector, in tv dramas) fluffy nice and an enticing prawn curry onto a plate within only minutes of getting home must efficiently put the rotten day behind her, and allow her to relax at last.

(In a cunning plot twist of course, the frozen or chilled meals she has recourse to in such circs have been prepared by her/bought from a chi chi restaurant the previous weekend, against the apocalypse. Yet I reckon she’ll still be castigated by some for involving a freezer and a microwave in assembling her instant supper this particular evening)

Yes, but not everyone eats them every day either.

So I think we have to allow that different people eat differently. You might cook from scratch every day (so do I, for the record, but I'm retired, at home a lot and have the income and inclination to do so) but plenty of others don't. And they shouldn't be made to feel as though they are somehow lacking if they eat the odd ready meal.

No, but it has cream in it which is much worse than cheese for the lactose intolerant!

Cottage pie should have cheese on top but otherwise YANBU

Have you ever tried lactase pills? They have changed my life!

They don't. They really don't. Not that there's something wrong with all ready meals but I don't ever buy them, I don't find them appealing and would rather eat eggs on toast or similar if I CBA to cook.

As a veggie there is no way I could live on ready meals. I' have the choice of vegetable curry or macaroni cheese ( hate macaroni cheese). Maybe a (soggy) veggie lasagne occasionally.

None of these are in the least bit appealing which is why I never buy them.

I feel this way about mayonnaise and butter. It’s in every pre bought salad and sandwich you can buy. Even a bacon roll from costs has butter on the bread, why?!

Why can’t they just put a sachet of mayo inside the salad so people can add it if they want too.

The late Mr Lakie hated cheese in its natural form, but bloody loved it melted or in a sauce.

That makes no sense to me at all.

I always say this about Steak. If you cook a steak well (at any level of pinkness from rare-well done), you don’t need a sauce for it. If a steak comes smothered in sauce, it’s normally absolute rubbish.

My Dh hates cheese in any form
But likes cheese and onion flavoured crsps 🤔

I agree, I hate cheese of any sort, but also I can't eat
anything in the onion family so I don't buy any ready meals now, even going out unless to a carvery is a nightmare, I don't know why they think EVERYBODY likes cheese. It's vile.

Same
You find it in extraordinary things these days
If supermarkets are going to add cheese to everthing they need to mske it very clear on the package and not in tiny writing.

Every cafe or restaurant is guilty of overcheesing.
I'm not fond of cheese but would normally eat it if it was cooked. Unfortunately I'm having stomach problems which are made worse by fat, cheese especially. I can't go to several places now because there's nothing without cheese!

Its tough being dairy free so YANBU, however imo you can never have too much cheese 🧀

Why do they have to add bacon to Mac & cheese ready meals. The cheap ones are disgusting and the expensive ones have bacon 😫 mac & cheese is one ready meal that should always be veggie!