Only 1 in 4 meals cooked from scratch....

kippers

It's just said on the BBC news that only 1 in 4 meals are cooked from scratch.:shocked: How do people afford this?....All the salt and preservatives etc that are in ready meals.......and they don't taste very nice.

I'm amazed

DawnW

I can't believe how people can afford it. I have no debt now, and earn a decent wage, but certainly don't consder that I could afford this. And as you say, ready meals and takeaways tend to be made of the cheapest ingredients with lots of salt and sugar to make them taste acceptable, and if ready meals, full of preservatives etc to stop them going off, so they are not even nice!

It makes you wonder who they asked though - nobody on here, I bet

Hardup_Hester

Not in this house, here 99.9% of meals are cooked from scratch, I don't like the taste of ready meals.
I work with someone who serves only ready meals to her family, her kids are the sicklyest pair in the whole school, she's adament that she doesn't have time, yet she works the same hours I do & is 20 years younger than me.
Hester

JulieGeorgiana

WOW! This is really shocking!

Even being really really poorly with my pregnancy, my DH is still cooking most meals for him and DS from scratch and what I can eat is also cooked from scratch! The only thing is DH uses a few jars (maybe 2/3 times a month) and chips may appear a few times more then they should at the moment instead of me cooking it from raw ingredients.

I just can't get my head around it... there just isn't an excuse for eating that much ready made food!!!

Even my bread is HM, mince pies, cakes, snacks! Why would anyone want to fill themselves with those levels of salt and perservatives is beyond me!

Ready made meals don't even taste nice most the time, and definatly don't stem the hunger!!

No wonder we are a nation suffering high levels of Obesity!

JournalGirl

But what to they mean 'cooked from scratch'? If I make a big pot of something, chances are i will have some of it reheated the next day for lunch or dinner, and some will be frozen and defrosted later....does that mean I'm already down to one in three meals coked from scratch?

rachbc

I guess it depends on what they means by cooked from scratch. Convenience food isn't just ready meals - it could be a jar of sauce , tin of soup which plenty of us on here use. I do try to cook from scratch but use curry pastes, oven chips, jars of pesto and even the occassional pizza

Meadows

That does not surprise me at all as for many it is Takeaways, Ready Meals or something out of a jar, but like all news articles they should be taken with a large pinch of salt as I think far more people are cooking (All and Everything ) from scratch these days and a lot batch cook so they have their own instant meals on hand in the freezer when the are too busy to cook that day.

[Deleted User]

I do cook 99% of stuff from scratch as I have the time to do so ,but many folk who are working full time just don't have that sort of time anymore.When i was working years ago sometimes it was a case of having to or my children who be hungry,etc fish & chips on a Friday night .I don't think I could afford to buy in ready meals or would want to as I don't like processed stuff at all.There are times when frozen veg are a great help when the fresh stuff in very expensive.A little while ago cauliflowers shot through the roof and I bought some frozen and it did the job until the prices came down a bit.At the moment I think Leeks are quite dear in some places but I don't think I would fancy frozen ones and I just wait until I see them at a more reasonable price.Even reduced I wouldn't fancy a 'cardboard dinner as I would keep thinking I could make twice as much for half the price.I don't by jars of sauce as I like to make my own and I never buy tinned soup as HM is cheaper and so much nicer and for the price of a tin I can make twice as much and freeze it.This week I am going through my freezer to see whats left as I am 'running 'it down to defrost and i know there are some bones in there in various packets that I bought over the past few months and they will be turned into stock for soup.I also have some rather 'bendy' carrots that will become carrot and lentil soup for this weeks lunches.As I say I have the time and the inclination but I never 'knoock ' those who don't different strokes for different folks.
(it helps having had a tiny frugal Scots Mum whilst I was growing up who cooked everything from scratch as well ) lots of people nowadays just have never been taught to cook, even basic plain food.All these fancy sprawncy cooking programmes on t.v. we could do with an ordinary basic programme using everyday ingredients to show folk how easy it is to cook something nice for very little money.But then I don't think the big food chains would sponsor something that might lower their profits

misskool

Just watching this now on BBC breakfast. I can see how easy it will be to slip, when you're really busy and tired, sometimes it's just easier to have a takeaway.

I do cook a lot but many people just aren't that bothered by what food tastes like!!

seraphina

I can well believe this - I can think of several examples where it's cheaper to serve up Aldi/Iceland/Lidl/ chicken nuggets and chips than cook for scratch. I've also seen other people on here mention it too.

Especially if you can't cook particularly well, cooking from scratch can be seen as a chore - and an expensive chore if you're used to ready meals. The cheapest foods made by cooking from scratch - pulse dishes, ham hock etc can seem really quite alien to people who aren't used to them.

I just thank my lucky stars I know how to cook!

ubamother

I haven't read the article, but you could play around with the language to mean pretty much anything. Although I would say that in my house no meals aren't cooked from scratch, breakfasts are sometimes croissants (which I haven't made) or brioche (which I haven't made), so are they including breakfasts or only dinners. Is a sandwich with bought bread, but with homecooked ham made from scratch? A leftovers meal - e.g. Sunday roast leftovers turned into Monday's soup - that's not 'made from scratch' in some people's eyes, although I, and I guess most OSers wouldn't think that way. I prep and portion-freeze lots of items such as sauteed onions, tomato sauces, and full meals for quick use - I'd count that as scratch but did the researchers of this piece?