Why do we eat ready meals

Winner: Homemade chicken curry coconut milk, chicken breast, onion, garlic, curry spice, chilli, potato, tomatoes and handful of veg. Homemade: Fish pie salmon, smoked haddock, sweetcorn and peas, topped with mashed potatoes made with milk and butter and a handful of cheddar cheese. Verdict: These are surprisingly similar nutritionally. With homemade pies, though, you might be tempted to go for seconds, so you could easily end up almost doubling the fat and calories.

Joint winner: Saucy Fish Co. Homemade: Baked salmon with buttered new potatoes and veg — broccoli, courgettes and peas.

Per portion: calories, 15g fat, 1g sugar, 4g fibre, 0. Packaged: Saucy Fish Co. Per portion one salmon fillet, a third of a potatoes pack and one g veg pack : calories, Homemade baked salmon with buttered vegetables.

Homemade: Chicken stir-fry, made using chicken breast, half a red pepper, handful broccoli, onion, mushrooms, and 2tsp soy sauce, served with g boiled basmati rice.

Per portion: calories, 3g fat, 5g sugar, 3g fibre, 1g salt. Per portion: calories, 1. Homemade chicken stir-fry was a joint winner right. Verdict: These dishes are both good choices, nothing to choose between them really, although the homemade one does contain at least three of your five a day recommended portions of fruit and veg. However, add an extra handful of vegetables to the packaged meal and they would be identical.

I think this goes to show that it is possible to eat ready-prepared food and stick to a healthy diet. The caveat, of course, is that there are plenty of much less healthy choices available, which you need to steer clear of, so always check the label and ingredients list.

One advantage of the ready meal is that they are already portioned so unless you eat a meal for two all by yourself, your portion is well controlled, something that is more difficult to do with home-cooked food. We also know from research that we need to eat more fruit and vegetables as a nation and more fibre, so adding frozen or fresh veg or salad to all of the packaged meals will boost their nutritional value. Overall, a mix of homemade and ready-prepared food is a good compromise.

Homemade: Roast chicken with olive oil, g meat per person. Stuffing with onion, olive oil, breadcrumbs, egg. Served with 3 potatoes roasted in olive oil, broccoli, carrots and peas. Gravy using pan juices plus 1 tbsp flour.

Pudding: Apple crumble — apple stewed with 2tbsp sugar, topped with plain flour, g sugar and g butter. Served with custard made from g double cream, ml whole milk, 4 eggs, g sugar. Per portion of roast dinner and pudding: 1, calories 94g fat, 74g sugar, 7g fibre 3g salt. Per portion half pack roast potatoes, g stuffing, g chicken meat, g veg, 50ml gravy plus g crumble served with ml custard : 1, calories, Verdict: The nutritional profile of the homemade and shop-bought roasts is similar — both high in calories and sugar.

But the packaged is lower in fat. This might be as people tend to drown their roasts in oil and butter at home. The shop-bought frozen veg is just as good a source of vitamins and minerals. The key is portion size. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

About us. Request a brochure. Basket 0. Back to list. Are ready meals really that bad for us? Nothing beats the convenience and safety especially in recent times with the Covid pandemic that ready meal home delivery provides, but what about the health aspect? It is fair to say that some ready meals out there are not developed with a great focus on nutrition meaning they may lack some of the nutritional benefits that fresh ingredients provide, but there are thankfully plenty of ready meals which provide sufficient goodness from a dietary perspective, whilst also tasting delicious.

The ease and convenience of home food delivery and popping a ready meal straight into the microwave or oven is a luxury we all need to indulge in from time to time. Ready meals are often high in salt and fat and low in other nutrients. Eating foods high in calories often may cause you to gain weight, while eating too much salt could increase your blood pressure.

These may be lower in calories, fat, salt and sugar, but are also still low in other important nutrients. Lots of supermarkets also have a luxury or premium range of their own-brand ready meals. The traffic light labelling found on the front of some food packaging can help you to compare the nutritional content of different ready meals and guide you to make a healthier choice.

This lists the amount of calories, fat, salt and sugar in the food and categorises these as either red, amber or green depending on whether the level is high, medium or low. Opt for as many green categories as possible where you can. So if fat, salt and sugar are listed high up, this means that the product is made up mostly of these ingredients. For example, the label may display calories per g, but the product might weigh g.

One of the easiest ways to make any meal healthier is to add at least one portion of fresh vegetables or salad to your meal. So this is a great way to boost the nutritional content of a ready meal. Boil some veg like broccoli while you wait for your meal to cook, or keep frozen peas, sweetcorn and spinach on hand in the freezer. You could also try buying a portion of fresh fruit to have for dessert. Cooking a healthy meal may take less time than you think - try my delicious vegetable pasta recipe below to help you get started.

As these meals tend to be energy-dense they may be contributing to the obesity crisis that Australia currently faces. In addition, their low vegetable content means people are even less likely to meet recommendations for vegetable intake, thereby increasing their risk of chronic disease.

Another concern is how these foods are cooked. Thermal processing, using higher temperatures and long cooking times can cause a significant reduction in vitamin C, thiamine B1 and folic acid as well as several antioxidants found naturally in fruits, vegetables and herbs.

Alongside the already low vegetable content present in these foods, thermal processing is likely to lead to further reduction in nutrient density of ready-made meals. Based on the nutritional composition and negative health consequences it would seem that we should never replace our home-cooked meals with a ready-made version.