Crap "ready food"
Discussion
Busy day for both of us, we'll have prepared pancetta and spinach ravioli in a prepared tomato and basil sauce, with doughballs (I know!) with it, nice and easy. All of it, from start to finish was absolute crap! Sainsburys, be ashamed.
I'm just finishing a fried egg and tomato sarnie on toast - delicious! But I shouldn#t be eating this at 21:35!
I'm just finishing a fried egg and tomato sarnie on toast - delicious! But I shouldn#t be eating this at 21:35!
'Ready Meals' are not value for money, and are full of unknowns.
Spend a weekend buying fresh, cooking and freezing down. Stuff like pasta sauces, chilli, fajitas etc.
Take the same time to prepare in advance, then when you want it, it's just as quick, better for you, and you'll save a bundle.
Spend a weekend buying fresh, cooking and freezing down. Stuff like pasta sauces, chilli, fajitas etc.
Take the same time to prepare in advance, then when you want it, it's just as quick, better for you, and you'll save a bundle.
Edited by pacman1 on Friday 5th June 21:58
Not all ready meals are crap, just like not all freshly cooked things are great! There are some gorgeous ready meals out there.
On the face of it they may be poor value for money, but then time is money... and if a ready meal saves you 30 minutes preparing and still tastes good, that's got to be worth it.
For sure you wouldn't want to live on ready meals alone, but there is a huge snobby attitude about ready meals being bad, and yet the same people who go on about it then rave about M&S "pre-prepared" food, as they don't think of that stuff as ready meals!
On the face of it they may be poor value for money, but then time is money... and if a ready meal saves you 30 minutes preparing and still tastes good, that's got to be worth it.
For sure you wouldn't want to live on ready meals alone, but there is a huge snobby attitude about ready meals being bad, and yet the same people who go on about it then rave about M&S "pre-prepared" food, as they don't think of that stuff as ready meals!
Bullett said:
I've even gone off pre-done stuffed pastas now. Had a waitrose ricotta and something, it was just really bland.
Pre-prepared food? We did try one of the meal for £x offers (M&S) I think, again it was ok but I coud have done better with the raw ingrediants.
I blame the obsession with low fat and salt, and anything else that makes things nice. Pre-prepared food? We did try one of the meal for £x offers (M&S) I think, again it was ok but I coud have done better with the raw ingrediants.
Depends what your intake balance with regard homecooked/ready meals is.
When I first moved in, we ripped the kitchen out, so I lived for a week on microwave ready meals. The g/f had been staying with friends in London and spent the week eating home cooked food.
When she returned on the friday we got a take away pizza. I couldn't taste the garlic bread, thought it needed more salt. Hadn't realised I'd emptied most of the salt pot onto it before it tasted right. The g/f nearly nearly threw up when she tasted it, it was so salty. The ready meals I'd been eating all week had screwed up my tastebuds. They'd conned me into thinking I needed the salt to give me taste.
You get immune to the amount of salt that goes into processed food if you eat enough of it. Now we're back to home cooking and don't oversalt things, when we do eat fast food I often find it tastes really salty.
When I first moved in, we ripped the kitchen out, so I lived for a week on microwave ready meals. The g/f had been staying with friends in London and spent the week eating home cooked food.
When she returned on the friday we got a take away pizza. I couldn't taste the garlic bread, thought it needed more salt. Hadn't realised I'd emptied most of the salt pot onto it before it tasted right. The g/f nearly nearly threw up when she tasted it, it was so salty. The ready meals I'd been eating all week had screwed up my tastebuds. They'd conned me into thinking I needed the salt to give me taste.
You get immune to the amount of salt that goes into processed food if you eat enough of it. Now we're back to home cooking and don't oversalt things, when we do eat fast food I often find it tastes really salty.
Edited by pacman1 on Saturday 6th June 20:38
Yeah, must admit many ready meals are high in salt. They are reducing the levels though compared to what they were.
Something quite ironic though... my mum (semi-retired) has always had the odd chicken & mushroom pot noodle in the cupboard, as she's quite partial to them as a quick meal from time to time. However, since they changed the recipe and reduced the salt level, they are now so bland tasting that she adds salt to it... probably more salt than they used to put in the old recipe! So if everyone does that, then it's not going to have any real effect is it...
Anyway, my philosophy is, if it tastes good, enjoy it. I'd rather have 60 years of living life to the full, appreciating a large variety of different food, cooked exactly as I want it, and NOT avoiding things like butter, salt saturated fat, red meat, etc, than 90 years of reduced enjoyment through watching and counting every aspect of my food.
Something quite ironic though... my mum (semi-retired) has always had the odd chicken & mushroom pot noodle in the cupboard, as she's quite partial to them as a quick meal from time to time. However, since they changed the recipe and reduced the salt level, they are now so bland tasting that she adds salt to it... probably more salt than they used to put in the old recipe! So if everyone does that, then it's not going to have any real effect is it...
Anyway, my philosophy is, if it tastes good, enjoy it. I'd rather have 60 years of living life to the full, appreciating a large variety of different food, cooked exactly as I want it, and NOT avoiding things like butter, salt saturated fat, red meat, etc, than 90 years of reduced enjoyment through watching and counting every aspect of my food.
Yes, but the reason you need to add the salt is because there's little natural flavour there in the first place!
I still think it's better to have the choice to add the salt should you wish rather than relying on the ready meal manufacturer to add it for you.
Take butter for instance. Cheap butter has a lot of salt to mask the inferiority of the product. Buy something like Lurpak slightly salted, (costs a bit more, but you always get what you pay for these days) and you soon appreciate the quality and difference, but you have to give your body a week or so to get used to the lower salt levels to fully appreciate the taste. Then try a bit of crap butter and you'll suddenly see there's little flavour other than salt!
ETA: enjoy your food AND live to 90!
I still think it's better to have the choice to add the salt should you wish rather than relying on the ready meal manufacturer to add it for you.
Take butter for instance. Cheap butter has a lot of salt to mask the inferiority of the product. Buy something like Lurpak slightly salted, (costs a bit more, but you always get what you pay for these days) and you soon appreciate the quality and difference, but you have to give your body a week or so to get used to the lower salt levels to fully appreciate the taste. Then try a bit of crap butter and you'll suddenly see there's little flavour other than salt!
ETA: enjoy your food AND live to 90!
Edited by pacman1 on Sunday 7th June 06:44
underneath2424 said:
Mobile Chicane said:
Bullett said:
Pre-prepared food? We did try one of the meal for £x offers (M&S) I think, again it was ok but I coud have done better with the raw ingrediants.
+1
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