Read this and you may never want to eat a ready meal again!

Haggisman said:
You had a steak, of course it was twice the price. Replace said steak with a chicken breast and it would be around the same price and even healthier :p
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Yeah it's a shame really, both white meat and red meat have their own nutritional properties, white meat is a leaner source of protein, Red meat also supplies vitamin B12, which helps make DNA and keeps nerve and red blood cells healthy, and zinc, which keeps the immune system working properly.

White meat is better for muscle recovery etc as your absorbed up to 80% of the protein from chicken etc..

Cooking red meat at a high heat and charring does release carcinogens though so it's best to avoid cooking it like this.

Both meats have there positives/negatives, I love both so sod it!
 
MrMoonX said:
Who in their right mind eats these things in the first place?
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Usually poor people, for the class of ready meals being referred to.

It's not accurate to lump all "ready meals" as a single thing. There's a great deal of variation in quality and price and, unsurprisingly, the two often go together.

Something like, for example, http://groceries.iceland.co.uk/slimming-world-hot-smoked-salmon-farfalle-550g/p/57995 or http://groceries.iceland.co.uk/slimming-world-beef-in-red-onion-gravy-with-veg-crush-550g/p/58001
is very different to something like, for example, http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=272971654

Even if you don't eat any of them, reading the nutritional information gives relevant information. Even when comparing what are portrayed as the same type of meal, you will almost always find that the value brand versions have very high levels of saturated fats, sugar and/or salt and the less cheap versions don't.

If you do eat them, the biggest difference will in the meat and most particularly in the beef. The £3 beef and crushed vegetables ready meal I gave as an example contains actual beef, all lean meat. A £1 ready meal containing beef will have "beef" in the sense that it probably mostly came from a cow. Unless you're lucky, in which case it will be horse. Cheap "beef" ready meals where much better when they were mostly horse.

It might be interesting for people who eat well to try one or two of the better ready meals and see what they think. I think that they'd probably find them tolerable. Not good, but not "I wouldn't feed this to a stray dog and I'm sure as hell not swallowing any of it myself."
 
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People are already able to read the nutritional information and the ingredients.

Is the OP suggesting sticking pictures of industrial processes and the low cost ingredients on the packages too?

This ranks up there with "black olives" being dyed green olives for things customers are happy to buy under a layer of pretence because it fills some niche in their life.

It's not going to kill you, it's a cheap knock-off living on the image of something higher quality and people who buy it already have the information they need.
 
I often keep the odd lasagne or other ready meal in the freezer for when I'm in a pinch. But I tend to cook most of my meals from scratch, they're just so much tastier, and if you do it right it's cheaper too. Got a lovely curry on the hob right now that all in all probably will only cost about £2, including naan bread, and it will be better than any jar/ready-made curry I've ever had. It'll be bigger too ;)

Mouth's watering at the thought.
 
diamount said:
Don't you need to add a ton of sugar to even make that palatable? Which a lot of processed food contains, but I'm talking about ready meals.
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no not at all :/

most has maybe 2 grams of sugar per 100 grams for the flavoured varities.

and same goes for ready meals what i find hilarious are people who go "omg low fat they just replace the fat with sugar" ...seriously?


the people, who get lead down these paths of blaming "precessed food" (what do you even mean by that for a start) are generally the ones who don't understand how cooking works.

refined carbs can be bad but if you balance them well they arnt an issue. most of the problem isn't the "processing" its simply the recipe which is what people want it to taste like, which is usually very rich fatty and salty, cause those are all things that used to be hard to get so our body loves them and tells us to eat more of them.

s they make the stuff taste how people like, and with sugar fat and salt costs sweet **** all its a downward spiral.
 
Tefal said:
no not at all :/

most has maybe 2 grams of sugar per 100 grams for the flavoured varities.

and same goes for ready meals what i find hilarious are people who go "omg low fat they just replace the fat with sugar" ...seriously?


the people, who get lead down these paths of blaming "precessed food" (what do you even mean by that for a start) are generally the ones who don't understand how cooking works.

refined carbs can be bad but if you balance them well they arnt an issue. most of the problem isn't the "processing" its simply the recipe which is what people want it to taste like, which is usually very rich fatty and salty, cause those are all things that used to be hard to get so our body loves them and tells us to eat more of them.

s they make the stuff taste how people like, and with sugar fat and salt costs sweet **** all its a downward spiral.
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we're not talking about the people with balanced diet though, its the people who solely eat frozen foods because they cant afford or simply cba to cook their own meals.
 
Glad i can say i have never bought and never will buy a ready meal, l do my best to eat organic food i thank my parents for brining me up this way. Thier is way to much sugar in food these days the government needs to crack down on it and food standards in general, especially companys like Monsanto need to banned.
 
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diamount said:
or simply cba to cook their own meals.
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Hmm… If they can't be bothered to cook. I do wonder how lazy they really are. Must be a lot of effort with everything. As cooking really isn't that hard. Let alone everyone has the internet at their finger tips.
 
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