Do you buy ready made meals.

Maybe it is an age thing or maybe not as my daughter aged 32 agrees with me: why would anyone buy a lasanga kit or the like? I never give much though to the fact that we cook almost everything from scratch but even if you look at what is for sale in supermarkets there must be a large amount of people who buy ready made pies ect for their dinner.

Keane2baMused

On occasion I do. However I never give ready meals to my kids. It's more for my OH who can't cook to save his life so he likes to have one or two in the fridge/ freezer for such an emergency when I'm not around

You can get some that aren't so bad. The traffic light system is great for checking salt/ sugar / fat contents.

SEPT 23 1989

my wife buys them when she is going away and i have to fend for myself

JustShon

I find cooking for just myself feels lonely and depressing so I use ready meals to shorten the whole experience.

jam_mac_jam

I eat soup that is ready made. That would be about it. I can see why you would, they save a lot of time. I just don't really like them. I had to laugh at the facebook comments this morning, you would think people were beating their children by eating ready meals, oh the horror, the laziness.

ems_12

Time mainly; why spend an hour + making something that you can make in half the time? (I buy lots of jars, premade sauces etc. I don't buy as much ready made/microwave "meals" as they just taste awful; a ready made carbonara is not comparable to home made. I suppose this is the case with ALL foods but there's a point at which I consider the ready made additions "worth it" in comparison to time taken for home made).

JustShon

JustShon wrote: »

I find cooking for just myself feels lonely and depressing so I use ready meals to shorten the whole experience.

Both of mine can cook but one would be more interested in cooking than the other, her attitude is... all that effort and it will be gone in a few minutes, but they are both in to eating healthy.

Boom_Bap

I buy the ready made lasagnes in Lidl, handy to keep in the freezer along with a garlic bread for a night when there is little time to prepare food.

I actually had a Mac N' Cheese ready meal thing last night that I picked up out of curiosity. It was lovely, but I'll make it with some bacon bits next time.

jam_mac_jam

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

I eat soup that is ready made. That would be about it. I can see why you would, they save a lot of time. I just don't really like them. I had to laugh at the facebook comments this morning, you would think people were beating their children by eating ready meals, oh the horror, the laziness.

People can get a bit Nazi about it alight you have to have balance, however habits of a life time do start in childhood.

discus

For the past few years I'ved cooked breakfast, lunch (lived near work) and dinner for one every day. I can't stand how anyone would eat a ready meal ahead of even the most plain home-cooked meal.

RikkFlair

I treat myself to the Tesco tomato and mozzarella pasta bake once a week.

yellowlabrador

I wouldn't knock ready meals. I buy them every weekend for a friend who lives on his own and who has Alzheimers. He doesn't have a home help those days and I get the chill cabinet lasagnes and cottage pies for him. He can still feel independent and pop them in a microwave, and best of all in his eyes' they are not expensive and tasty.

jester77

I had one of those lasagnes once, nasty wouldn't half describe it.

But I now only ever cook. It is really not hard to throw together a spaghetti aioli or pesto if you are pressed for time.

Discodog

I eat 5 per week. I live alone & I love the speed & convenience. Thanks to Tesco & M&S there are some really nice meals out there.

I will be home later than usual tonight & my beef in a chianti sauce with roast potatoes will be ready in 6 mins.

humberklog

Occasionally buy my dinner from the deli counter in Fallon and Byrne or if I'm getting some handy meal in a packet from a supermarket (about once a month) I'll go for the very basic brand such as Frey Bentos pie, carrols lasagne or cheap chicken Kiev's. Kinda comfort food for me.

I find Finest ranges or "Artisan style" ready meals to be utter nonsense.

Malari

I get the M&S "dine-in" specials a couple of times a year as a treat, but they all seem to be loaded with saturated fat! I'm not a big ingredient checker, and I have no problem with having an unhealthy meal once in a while, but when the first thing that draws your eye is the big red "FAT" label it makes you think twice I suppose. :pac:

I never buy jars of sauces or kits though. I do nearly all the cooking in our house and it's all from scratch. Even if I'm making a meal for myself, part of the enjoyment is the actual cooking, so I don't mind if it takes much longer to cook than eat.

Chickarooney

Won't buy jars of sauce. Won't buy "kits". I cook food from scratch. I do buy curry paste and fresh pesto. Though I'm well capable of making both, it's just much more expensive to do so so I check the ingredients and don't buy crap.

Things that come in tins are chickpeas, coconut milk, kidney beans, tomatoes.

Frozen food consists of peas and spinach and berries. And cornettos, obviously.

Pac1Man

Processed food full of salt? Nah!

Speedwell

I'd never buy a kit normally. On occasion my husband has had a craving for duck and he's bought one of those things with the pancakes and roasted duck in it, and those are not too bad. We might buy a jar of curry sauce, but we never leave well enough alone and we always doctor it up till its mother wouldn't recognize it. I'm a serious foodie and he's a chef in training, though. We are always conscious that there are people who would burn a pot of boiling water, bless them, or who have physical or cognitive limitations, and they need to eat too.

Chijj

yellowlabrador wrote: »

I wouldn't knock ready meals. I buy them every weekend for a friend who lives on his own and who has Alzheimers. He doesn't have a home help those days and I get the chill cabinet lasagnes and cottage pies for him. He can still feel independent and pop them in a microwave, and best of all in his eyes' they are not expensive and tasty.

Posts like this give me faith in humanity, fair play, he has a good friend in you.

miezekatze

I buy the ones from M&S sometimes. They are tasty and sometimes I'm just too tired after work to cook properly. I wouldn't want to eat them every day though.

Speedwell

Pac1Man wrote: »

Processed food full of salt? Nah!

Oh, don't be absurd. Miso, pickles, natural cheese, salt cod, bacon.

KikiDee

Depending on what shift I'm on in work, sometimes I would buy them and eat them. It all comes down to how busy I am. I think someone said it in an earlier post, but cooking for one is not always ideal so they're handy to have. There's a little deli near me that does them homemade so you know exactly what you're getting and they're healthy enough. Guess I'm lucky enough on that count.

Chickarooney

Funny thing is, if you eat extreeeemely healthily and no processed foods, you're probably not getting enough salt in your diet!

"I've been healthy all week. Need chips so I don't die of saltlessness."

Pac1Man

Speedwell wrote: »

Oh, don't be absurd. Miso, pickles, natural cheese, salt cod, bacon.

Do you mean there is salt in those too? You're not forced to eat those though, or any other food with a high salt content.

What is miso?

Chickarooney

Pac1Man wrote: »

Do you mean there is salt in those too? You're not forced to eat those though, or any other food with a high salt content.

What is miso?

Miso hungry.

Malari

Chickarooney wrote: »

Funny thing is, if you eat extreeeemely healthily and no processed foods, you're probably not getting enough salt in your diet!

"I've been healthy all week. Need chips so I don't die of saltlessness."

I think most people cooking whole foods would be adding salt though. Every recipe says "season to taste" so there is salt in most food, you just control the amount.

Speedwell

Pac1Man wrote: »

Do you mean there is salt in those too? You're not forced to eat those though, or any other food with a high salt content.

What is miso?

Nobody's talking about forcing anyone to eat anything. But my cooking would not be the same if I couldn't use a wide range of ingredients, many of which are highly processed, high-salt foods.

Miso is essentially the mash that ferments to produce tamari soy sauce, is a very tasty condiment in its own right, and is the basis for a lot of savory Japanese cuisine.

Mesrine65

Pac1Man wrote: »

Processed food full of salt? Nah!

How healthy do you want to be when you die?

Chickarooney

Malari wrote: »

I think most people cooking whole foods would be adding salt though. Every recipe says "season to taste" so there is salt in most food, you just control the amount.

Yep but you can still not get enough. "To taste" might be much less for some.

Particularly if you do a lot of exercise.

I've suffered with low blood pressure most of my life "eat more salt" is the cure.

Last year I got quite unwell due to low sodium levels from eating so clean and training a lot. "eat more salt" was the cure.

And I'm a very good cook, so my food is far from bland! I use a lot of spices in cooking, so a lot salt isn't always necessary.

GLaDOS

Very rarely use ready made meals or sauces from jars. Healthier and (usually) tastier to make from scratch. Obviously time is an issue but with a bit of planning I cook quick stuff during the week and more lengthier stuff in bulk at the weekend and freeze. Slow cooker is fantastic as well.

brevity

When I have the time I make it myself, when I don't a get a kit or a jar.

That's what they are for really.

Pac1Man

Speedwell wrote: »

Nobody's talking about forcing anyone to eat anything. But my cooking would not be the same if I couldn't use a wide range of ingredients, many of which are highly processed, high-salt foods.

I just know that I wouldn't enjoy eating something knowing it was highly processed with a high salt content.

Mesrine65 wrote: »

How healthy do you want to be when you die?

That falls into the same bracket as when people say 'you can't take it with you' with regards to overspending money.

I would like to be a grand old age before that time comes. Avoiding (within reason) processed foods can only help that.

fleet_admiral

No never. I make everything from scratch. Soup, pizza sauce, pesto the lot

StupidLikeAFox

Everything from scratch here as well.

Pasta sauce is ridiculously simple and cheap to make. Fry onions, mushrooms, garlic, chillis (if you like), add in tin of tomatoes and some herbs (herbs de provence from lidl, or some combination of basil, oregano etc.). Add salt and pepper.

You can tweak it as you like. It is made from scratch in the time it takes to cook some chicken and the actual pasta. Blitz it in a blender for better coverage. Can be used on pasta, in a bolognese or as a sauce for pizza. Would never go back to the jars

Allinall

I think the word "processed" is misused, and often misunderstood.

If you cook a meal from scratch, using all raw, fresh ingredients, the end result is "processed".

A lot of "ready" meals are cooked just the same as you would do yourself, except done in bigger batches.

c68zapdsm5i1ru

Allinall wrote: »

I think the word "processed" is misused, and often misunderstood.

If you cook a meal from scratch, using all raw, fresh ingredients, the end result is "processed".

A lot of "ready" meals are cooked just the same as you would do yourself, except done in bigger batches.

Most of them seem to have a lot of additives that would never appear in home cooked food.

I buy pesto and normally i dont buy sauces at all but the Lloyd grossman tomato sauce thingy is quite nice and doesn't seem to made of sugar so i use a bit of that

meeeeh

Not really. I buy pre-made pesto and some curry pastes, also sausages and cured meats but that is as far as I will go.

Allinall

Kace Scary Robber wrote: »

Most of them seem to have a lot of additives that would never appear in home cooked food.

Agreed. But then, all additives are not necessarily bad.

It's all about understanding the ingredients.

Similarly with "E" numbers. people just assume their all bad, whereas all it is is a pan-European method of classifying additives.

TPD

I'd use jars of curry, and 50/50 whether I make my own tomato based sauces for bolognaise etc. I bought a ready-meal shepherds pie in aldi a while back, not particularly tasty so won't be buying again, but was surprised to see the ingredients weren't much different to what I'd use making it from scratch.

ScumLord

Where can I get this "scratch" that everyone's making their dinners out of? Sound's like really versatile stuff.

I don't have a microwave so I can't cook the really ****ty ready meals. My problem with having a load of ingredients in the house is that I can't go through it before it all rots. Feels like a waste to buy all the ingredients, use a fraction of it to make a dinner and let the rest rot. In a prepared meal I'm just paying for the meal.

Speedwell

I buy ready-made ingredients such as passata, just as lots of professionals do. It would be silly to try to make all of your passata from supermarket tomatoes. Simple, relatively unprocessed ingredients allow you to get good flavors out of season or that aren't local. Heavily processed ingredients might be things you wouldn't normally make in your own kitchen, like tofu (which I have made, it's just a complete pain) or shaped pasta (which I have made in a commercial kitchen but would never make at home) or, you know, sugar.

But none of this is the same as buying a complete ready-made meal. Even buying a ready-made casserole, if it is not the whole meal, isn't exactly what I think the OP meant.

Scumlord, consider making your own "ready-made meals" and popping them in the freezer in foil trays. That way you can use up your ingredients, benefit from your own cooking, save time and money, and eliminate most waste. Just plan to heat them up in the oven.

mariaalice

mariaalice wrote: »

Maybe it is an age thing or maybe not as my daughter aged 32 agrees with me: why would anyone buy a lasanga kit or the like? I never give much though to the fact that we cook almost everything from scratch but even if you look at what is for sale in supermarkets there must be a large amount of people who buy ready made pies ect for their dinner.

I was watching a foreign language documentary that my partner had to translate a transcript for on the subject of ready meals recently. I did not understand most of the language - but the general subject of the show was they randomly purchased a few ready meals from all the brands in all the top shops in that country.

They then got professional chefs to cook those meals and they brought them out to the street and put them on tables next to blown up pictures of what the packaging _said_ the meal looked like.

And every single one of them bar none turned out to be sloppy masses of goo bearing almost no resemblance to the pictures. Most of them irredeemably sticking to the packaging they were meant to be cooked in in places (microwave meals seemingly very much more guilty of this than oven cooked).

That coupled with the masses of salt and other artificial flavor and shelf life enhancers that go into them - I can not imagine ever wanting to buy such meals myself ever.

I know I am a snob when it comes to food as I cook and prepare my own (even make my own bread and pasta and other things people might buy for convenience as part of an otherwise entirely home cooked life style) - even to the point of growing or farming what I can on my limited time and budget (veg - herbs - eggs - hunted rabbit and fished meat and so forth) but shows like that kinda make me feel somewhat justified in my quiet internal snobbery all the same.

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

I eat soup that is ready made. That would be about it.

Soup is one thing I really love making myself. Or risotto. Or anything that involves stock or the like. Mainly because I grow a lot of my own veg and I have loads of stalks and leaves and cuttings and left overs. So they all go into a stock pot pretty much daily. As do bones and more.

So by the time I end up making soup or risotto or something - I have a really pure and deep flavoured vat of stock to use in it. Works great.

ems_12 wrote: »

Time mainly; why spend an hour + making something that you can make in half the time?

That was likely a rhetorical question but I will answer it anyway. I guess the reason why many do it - like myself - is that we see the process as a means in itself rather than a means to an end.

In other words many people see the process of cooking as a hindrance in the way between them getting the food ready and eaten so they can move on to other things they want to be doing - gaming, tele, reading, going out, whatever.

But for many of us cooking itself is a hobby and a pleasure in and of itself. So questions like "Why bother" are as meaningless to people like me - as putting in the effort is to others

I think a lot of people _want_ to eat healthier and tastier and better - but many fail at it. And the reason they fail at it is they do not learn to enjoy the challenge and the process and the experience in and of itself. The cooking is an inconvenience in-between them and where they want to be.

All that said - when you get into it and get good at it and more importantly you get into a routine of it - you would be surprised how little time the day to day preparations actually take. With some skill and experience you can hammer down the length of time you have to invest in it quite a lot. And you get quite good at planning meals in an order where the left overs of the process for one feed into the next.

For example you talk about the time saved buying ready made sauces and the like. But I would, to give an idea, make shakshuka one day - which is basically eggs poached in a rich and flavoursome and multiple spiced (especially cumin) tomato sauce.

Then the next day I could make home made pizza and the left over sauce from the shakshuka makes for the base sauce of the pizza.

And the left over dough mix from the pizza would go into a break fast bread for the next day.

And so on and so on. So a ready made pizza sauce would save literally _zero_ time - and would be inferior in multiple ways.

Pac1Man wrote: »

I would like to be a grand old age before that time comes. Avoiding (within reason) processed foods can only help that.

Allinall wrote: »

I think the word "processed" is misused, and often misunderstood.

From studies and articles I have read recently I believe we are finding that salt is not _as_ bad for us as people have previously thought. That said I would like to avoid it myself in wanton and unnecessary quantities - but I do not concern myself overly with salt intake in general.

My issue with salt in ready meal like things is more for taste than health therefore. I would prefer to eat meals that do not rely on silly quantities of it just to be subjectively edible.

As for "processed" foods - that is a hard bag to unpack because what constitutes "processed" is actually a lot more general than people think. "Processed" food is anything that is altered or modified. Smoked, pasteurised, certain packaging, freezing - all of this constitutes "processed food".

So there is now a sub category that exists called "Ultra Processed". Which is defined as "The ready to eat - or ready to heat - foods usually made up of multiple processed elements".

So it is less "processed" foods that are worthy of avoidance so much as anything with added fat - particularly trans fats - and refined carbs can lead to over eating and insulin spikes.

And Ultra processed foods tend to be lower in fibre. Which means people tend to over eat - and they are calorie dense. And fibre aids digestion. So not only do you over eat but you are over eating the wrong kind of thing. No wonder LCHF diets work for many people.

Mesrine65

I tend to cook fresh from raw ingredients as I enjoy cooking (& eating), but I don't have an issue with ready made meals for convenience sake.

As long as it's an occasional thing, what harm?

12Phase

mariaalice wrote: »

Maybe it is an age thing or maybe not as my daughter aged 32 agrees with me: why would anyone buy a lasanga kit or the like? I never give much though to the fact that we cook almost everything from scratch but even if you look at what is for sale in supermarkets there must be a large amount of people who buy ready made pies ect for their dinner.

I usually make from scratch but if I do buy ready meals I'm very fussy about what's in them.

There's an enormous difference in quality and type of ingredients and it can vary from pretty healthy to absolutely junk food.

I would tend to use ingredients that I can cook with minimal prep time though.

The most important things you can have in any kitchen are good, sharp knives, good chopping board and a very controllable cooker (induction or gas) and some decent pots and at least two good pans. Add a decent fridge and a good oven and a microwave.

Once you've those things; cooking is fun.

You don't need umpteen gadgets

riffmongous

One thing I won't buy is shop pesto, the one I make myself is much nicer, hard to say if it is healthier though.

I also find in general I like to cook something new and exciting every now and again, but usually cooking for one after coming home from work in the evening feels like a chore. I don't have a microwave so I dont have so many typical readymade meals, rather oven pizzas and the like

HensVassal

I buy them on occasion just for emergencies...but not the pasta based ones. They're just shit. If I do a big Saturday shop I'll always throw in a few steak and onion pies. They're grand if you just want a quick bite. Also often pick up tho old ready-roasted chicken in a foil baggy. All you need to do with that is put on some peas and spuds and bam.. nice chicken dinner fairly quickly and leftovers for sandwiches.

And those ready meals while not the greatest are still way better than a fast-food meal.

Don't like frozen pizzas.

The Backwards Man

I pour boiling water over the spuds in the drills and attack the cow with a blowtorch in the byre.

mathie

Look at the amount of (good/bad/indifferent) ingredients in a fajita from Old El Paso.

http://www.generalmills.com/~/media/Images/Brands/Nutritional_Images/Old_El_Paso/Dinner_Kits/Dinner_Kit_Fajita.jpg

Fajitas are just eggs, flour and water. Pop them in a nutri bullet for a few seconds and you can fry them yourself.
Sure it takes 10 - 15 minutes but I'd rather eat natural than something pumped full of chemicals to aid a longer shelf life.

Keane2baMused

mathie wrote: »

Look at the amount of (good/bad/indifferent) ingredients in a fajita from Old El Paso.

http://www.generalmills.com/~/media/Images/Brands/Nutritional_Images/Old_El_Paso/Dinner_Kits/Dinner_Kit_Fajita.jpg

Fajitas are just eggs, flour and water. Pop them in a nutri bullet for a few seconds and you can fry them yourself.
Sure it takes 10 - 15 minutes but I'd rather eat natural than something pumped full of chemicals to aid a longer shelf life.

Do you use on of those presses to get them really flat?

I'd love to start making my own