To think that as big food industry cause a huge chunk of the NHS bill that they need to be taxed an NHS surcharge? Whats more galling is that many large food companies are US owned and the medication is US supplied.

[Noras]

We need radical thinking now.

The population is being physically harmed by uber processed foods. Many companies who produce the food are US owned. The US having poisoned is then sells us the drugs to maintain lofe and not cure any conditions.

Crisps - many US owned companies
Soft drinks - mainly US owned companies
Things like tomato ketchup - mainly US owned companies
Sweetened yoghurt - mainly US owned compnaies
Chocolate - Cadburys - say no more
Oven chips - US owned

The Gov needs to tax the hell out of carb heavy processed junk food and reduced VAT on fruit / veg / legumes etc.

Its glaringly apparent that there is something significantly wrong with the current proportions/ floor space of poor food choices in supermarkets.

Most of the aisles is taken up with selling pretend plastic foods.

Why is the Gov allowing this and not taxing this stuff to the hilt and spending that tax money on the NHS?

It makes me believe that we have a corrupt Gov not prepared to tackle large food consortiums and thus allowing the British public to be poisoned into poor health / diabetes etc where they become customers for large US pharmacy.

The whole thing is crazy. People need to be able to cook better and stop wasting money on processed junk. In that same vein, we need to tax more all take away places especially McDonald’s, Burger King, all coffee shops selling mass produced cakes with palm oil etc.

You do need plenty of freezer space for batch cooking though. Some people may only have a small compartment or a few drawers in their fridge freezer.

The problem unfortunately is deep rooted and cultural.

I think this is the part I find hardest to understand.

Over the last couple of decades, i have learnt to cook meals from friends and boyfriends.

Eg i had an Italian boyfriend a long while ago. He cooked some delicious food for me and taught me to make some very simple Italian dishes that his mum cooked for him as a child. Some have become staples of ours (not necessarily freezable but quick and easy and all fresh and healthy). I've passed that knowledge on to other people (new boyfriends, my children etc) after cooking for them and so on.

I have friends of other cultures and even just from different parts of the country or with different cooking experiences/family traditions where we have done and do similar.

I just can't really imagine a world where I didn't share food with my friends and someone didn't ask how to make something or pass on recipe recommendations.

That should he the cultural aspect of food we share. Not a culture of buying fozen pizzas and ready prepared foods (even if they are from M&S!)

We learn best through experience. We shouldn't need to rely on schools to teach this. This is where cooking and eating should be cultural and passed on through and between us.

You don't need to batch cook though people just need time cook.

As you say though, freezing changes it. Ready meals taste better because they are packed with whatever, which is what makes them popular. It may not be healthy but it is what it is.

Even the best home cooked food tastes like shit when batch cooked and frozen. I know nobody will admit it but it’s true.

The tinfoil hat brigade is out in force today!

Cooking a meal from scratch can be as quick as 15-20 minutes once you have done that meal a few times . There are lots of meals that can be prepared in advance and stored in the fridge for up to 48 hours.
I think the biggest issue is luck of skill together with brain washing advertising.

Yes, I do completely accept and understand that will account for some people. But it won't account for everyone. And certainly not anyone relying on a diet of frozen UPF.

Bread and weetabix made me very ill. I ended up with pancreatitis attacks after eating these. Bread now contains palm oil, which I hadn't realised. I still don't know why the weetabix did it though. I'm now off all processed foods and have been okay since. We have a breadmaker at home and I make my own muesli from scratch.

I can't be the only one who's ill from these seemingly innocuous foods.

That’s great but I can’t imagine having those kind of conversations with friends. It depends what kind of people you are friends with, if they invite each other round for lunch/dinner etc.

I have never been round to a friend’s house for food (not for about 40 years anyway) as it wouldn’t be a ‘thing’. Cooking isn’t a pleasure. It’s functional. And in my case not even that

Nope, it's a big problem. The food we're being sold is absolute rubbish. Addictive rubbish at that.

Yes, I agree, that was a spelling error on my part. I don't think it takes much time to cook a decent meal.

Do you want this country to look like the U.S. with it's health issues?

🤔. You are an food manufacturers dream customer!
The key is to wean yourself off the high sugar, salt, fat & chemicals and learn to taste real food again.

We are all conditioned to associate certain tastes with certain foods. Your body will also produce pleasure inducing hormones in response to the chemicals. It's a junkies fix.
If food draws water after freezing, that can be easily fixed with a little flower.

You should listen to The Hunger Games on Radio 4. Although the programme is about WLI, one episode explores the physical effects and chemical changes in the brain. Very, very interesting.

But on the plus side, it is consistent. When someone claims to like cooking and trying new things, it actually means that I can guarantee not being able to eat their cooking because it all just tastes overpoweringly unpleasant and contains a lot of random stuff.

I’m AuDHD and prefer to eat food where I know in advance what it will taste like. Ideally I prefer food that isnt cooked if I have to eat with someone.

Where did I say I ate ready meals? I just said they were better than home cooked frozen stuff.

I don’t know why you would assume I was unaware of why people eat processed food - I am fully aware.

How do you define ‘real food’ ?

Well, you find ready meals more palatable than mels cooked from scratch & frozen, so you must eat them in order to compare.

Real food = food that hasn't been stuffed full of salt, sugar & fat by means of manufacturing process.

I HAVE had them but not regularly and not for a long time.

I eat plenty of raw fresh fruit and vegetables.

I would just rather not have to add flour to my meal to make it palatable.

No, that's the food you buy. Nobody is compelling you to buy such rubbish.

A few years ago, James Martin did a programme on this at a hospital in Leeds I think. The food after he’d finished looked really good. I had to take someone to a hospital in the town I work in a few weeks ago and was surprised it had a Costa and a Greggs. But then, most hospital food isn’t good so I guess people will want to eat something familiar.

"Who’s forcing people to buy this though? "
It's cheap and it's readily available, that's why people buy it. Look up "food deserts" where lower income people do not have access to cheap AND nutritious food. Why no Iceland in Mayfair? It amazes me that we allow food companies to sell us this shit, and absolve themselves of the consequential costs on the grounds of "personal responsibility". It's a public health issue like smoking or drinking and needs more legislation and enforcement.

"Who’s forcing people to buy this though?"

No one is 'forcing' anyone.

But people buy what is available to them. Some people believe they are making 'healthy choices' when the choice they are making is actually just between shit and slightly more/less shit.

Ready meals marked as 'healthy'; shop packaged sandwiches that appear to be healthy but are just as crap as any other packaged sandwich; yogurts marked as healthy that are anything but.

On threads about diet or weight, there are always a large number of people saying that beans on toast is a healthy meal. It's all UPF. But if your alternative to that is McDonald's or eating nothing, then beans on wholemeal toast is a compromise. It's not actively healthy though.

There will be people on any thread about food and diet who genuinely believe they are eating a healthy diet who are not.

Yes, if you are eating sugary snacks everyday and takeaway burgers, you probably know and understand enough to realise that its 'junk food' but there will be countless people who think they are making healthy choices because they've read the label on a packet and just accepted it and their food is still 'junk'.

I dont eat 'healthily' all the time but i make most things myself so I avoid UPF and I know exactly what is in my food (as far as I can do without growing it all myself).

My son has spent a lot of time at a hospital in Leeds and the food wasn't great at all, unfortunately. My son practically lived on jacket potatoes when he was able to eat and won't touch them at all now.

The opening times of the food shops around the hospital were poor too such as the restaurant closing at 3pm and none of them been open at all during the weekends so eating in hospital as a parent was fun.

We're pretty much there already.

Yup, same at our hospital. DH was in for a week and always chose the "sandwich" option from the meal choices as everything else was cold/congealed/fatty slop, i.e. virtually liquid (with grease) Shepherd's Pie. "Desert" was usually a packet of crisps. Starter was processed concentrated orange or apple juice carton.

Hospital "restaurant" closed at 3pm so useless for an evening meal for visitors or, as I did, those who stay with the patient for a few hours. It had vending machines of the usual chocolate bars, crisps and fizzy drinks!

I got into the habit of walking down into town around 5pm just before closing time, to get us both something from elsewhere which I took back in. I'd also take a bag of snacks in with me each day with some fresh fruit and muesli bars.

I agree, but people still smoke and drink, and even take illegal drugs, so even with higher taxes, illegality, and age restrictions, etc., people still consume things that literally everyone knows are bad for you. It's naive to think that we can stop people eating junk by banning it or heavily taxing it.