What has happened to people cooking!

newster

It is the saltiness of bought stuff isn't it?? I don't cook with salt. I leave it for the family to put on themselves when the food is on their plate. I got into that habit when my eldest was born.I fed all my babies what we had. I'd puree it down and freeze it in ice cube trays. KNowing salt wasn't good for babies, I stopped using it in cooking. Hubby and I just added to our food once it was served up. I kept it like that ever since :-)

MrsTinks

You're right about the salt... My OH used to moan that the food wasn't salty enough - guess he was used to ready meal levels of salt and gradually he's now at a point when sometimes he adds NO salt at all to his meals! :eek:
Don't get me wrong - not every night at home is home cooked meals night... Like tonight I intend on treating myself to junk food... 8p curry flavour noodles from tesco :rotfl:

Hapless_2

my other half is one for salt, so I replaced the salt in the salt pot with lo-salt, after 10 yrs he still hasn't noticed.

Hapless_2

filigree wrote: »

I'm sure some people would look down their nose at my economy brands and reduced stickers. Stuff them

I do that, go for the reduced stuff. Now Sainsburys are putting their traffic light wheel on their basic stuff it's even better.

Hapless_2

newster wrote: »

Although having said that, I homeschool mine,

Same here (except I home educate:p )

Gingham_Ribbon

I wonder if this is a pure example of the power of advertising and supermarket tricks. It's difficult to buy much loose veg in supermarkets now. Most things on offer are processed and advertising hammers away at us every time we turn on the tv or open a magazine. You don't get adverts for home cooked stuff. I've never seen an ad for carrots!

Have people just fallen for it? I think so. I think they think it's more convenient, cheaper and tastier than they could manage themselves. I don't find that to be the case personally, but I fell for it, like most people do.

belfastgirl23

I'm not averse to ready meals. I tend to buy fishy ones once in a while because DH doesn't like the smell of fish cooking in the house (he doesn't eat it). But for most of the veggie ones I do pretty much prefer my own cooking. Have to say though if I was cooking just for me I would be an 'on toast' kind of person a lot more often

I know though my mum is eating a lot more ready meals now. I think it's because she feels that they are a 'treat' and at her age she deserves it. I think too though that the cost of ready meals has come down a lot for people of that generation and where they were once unfeasible they now seem to be as cost effective as cooking from scratch.

BTW I am a real trolley snoop. My biggest disdain is reserved for the sugar addicts rather than the ready meal people - at least they are eating things that might have some nutritional value. Trolleys stacked with coke/diet coke, biscuits and crisps seem worse to me, and you do see them quite often...

lady_fuschia

It's funny, but one of the biggest ready meal/ fast food eaters I've ever known was actually a fully trained working chef. His argument was that getting in at 11pm having spent all day cooking hundreds of lavish meals from scratch for other people the last thing he wanted to do was mess around making something for himself. I can kind of understand that I guess - I suppose the "ration generation" has similar issues in a way, they spent years with no choice but to cook from scratch, wash the dishes by hand etc, etc, slaves to the kitchen - once labour saving solutions became available you can hardly blame them for jumping at the chance. And in a way it's only in the past few years that we've really become aware of the potential health risks and started re-kindling a bit more interest in cooking - the eighties and nineties we were all more interested in the speed and convenience of a meal. I think more people are coming back to cooking from scratch in recent years and the trend will probably continue.

patentgirl

I make most things from scratch two main reasons first being the cost with a family of 5 and regular extras (partners of both DDS and DS) there is not way I could buy ready meals that would keep everyone satisfied and for health reasons with all the extra salt sugar and who knows what else but that doesnt mean we sometimes dont have a ready made pizza now and again or I am rather partial too the Sainsburys Indian meal for 2 when it is just me and OH
Did anyone see Janet Street Porter on the F Word last night trying Prince Charles Duchy range she couldnt eat them becasue of the high sugar content especially in a Chicken pie who would put sugar in a homemade chicken pie?
I agree people are more likely to look in my trolley at all the yellow sticker products I bet they hate getting behind me as the checkout person takes them all off one by one.

Shortie

black-saturn wrote: »

I occasionally have a ready meal on a sunday. I spend most of sunday on a train so I just can't be bothered to cook. I've got to say though some of those ready meals arn't too bad.

Yup, me too...

Last weekend I must have looked like one of those that never eats fresh....

I dont' always cook a roast but when I do I do it from scratch. Except for last weekend... our house has been in process of being decorated since last monday and I'd been doing bits to decorate all bank holiday weekend (while pregnant). Come Sunday I'd forgotten to take the lamb out of the freezer so decided to go to Mr T to buy one of those chilled turkey joints with stuffing in the middle that I could cook without defrosting for ages.

On the way there I realised I also couldn't be *rsed to wash and peel the potatoes, then have them boil over and make me scrub the hob afterwards, so I bought some frozen roasties.

My usual 2 hr stint in the kitchen over the roast became 40mins all in with cooking frozen veg rather than preparing fresh, which took an occasional stir and all the effort (:rotfl: ) of putting the meat and pots in the oven.

I felt really non-OS but it made me realised that sometimes you just need to rebel and feel better about other things you've spent your day on...

But as I say, I must have looked a really non-OS shopped that day, oops. But I can totally understand that sometimes changed situatios mean you can't always cook from scratch if you've not got a pre-batch cooked dinner in the freezer