Ready Meals

[Mogden]

Ingredients: Water, lamb (14%), red peppers, cooked chickpeas (10%), carrots, onions, apricot purée (5%), dried apricots (3%), baby potatoes (3%), lamb stock, tomato paste, cornflour, olive oil, parsley, mint, garlic, ras-el-hanout spice blend, coriander, cumin, allspice.

Apricot Purée - apricots, sugar.
Lamb - Lamb (99%), potato starch. Lamb stock - lamb stock (lamb, water, salt), salt onion juice, carrot juice.

My emphasis with the italics there. Looks like they're being fairly straight up with the stock listing. There's no mention of "flavourings" which is a fav to cover MSG. Not that MSG is always bad. It is a naturally occuring substance after all.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

This is the sort of thing I'm trying to get to the bottom of.

I don't want to be kidded into thinking that I'm eating well when I'm not.

Well, you know the answer to that really - make it yourself then you know exactly what's in it.

 

[og ogilby]

If they can show that added ingredients are merely 'processing agents' then they don't have to declare in on the package - hence we get loaves of bread with undeclared ingredients in them.

OK so there is no real way of knowing what you are eating by reading the ingredients on the packet.

Surely home cooked food must suffer from the same sort of bullshit assuming we buy the ingredients for it from the supermarket?

 

[og ogilby]

My emphasis with the italics there. Looks like they're being fairly straight up with the stock listing. There's no mention of "flavourings" which is a fav to cover MSG. Not that MSG is always bad. It is a naturally occuring substance after all.

Yeah you're right. I must have missed that bit.

 

[Wookey]

OK so there is no real way of knowing what you are eating by reading the ingredients on the packet.

Surely home cooked food must suffer from the same sort of bullshit assuming we buy the ingredients for it from the supermarket?

It might do - what about flour, say. Is that only flour, or flour with anti-caking agents - or flour with other agents they aren't obliged to tell us about?

 

[og ogilby]

Well, you know the answer to that really - make it yourself then you know exactly what's in it.

But do you?

If you use something like tomato purree in your recipie, aren't you back to the whole salt, sugar, E number shit that you thought you were avoiding by doing it yourself?

 

[og ogilby]

It might do - what about flour, say. Is that only flour, or flour with anti-caking agents - or flour with other agents they aren't obliged to tell us about?

Exactly!

 

[subversplat]

Actually, there's something not right about the ingredients they list. For a start, the stuff at the top only adds up to 35% and it says "contains dairy" and there is no dairy listed in the ingredients

There's a law in ingredients writing that says that anything below 1% (I think) doesn't have to be declared. It means that all sorts of malarkey can be added without appearing on the side of the box.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

But do you?

If you use something like tomato purree in your recipie, aren't you back to the whole salt, sugar, E number shit that you thought you were avoiding by doing it yourself?

Well OK if you want to take it to that level, you are right.

 

[subversplat]

It might do - what about flour, say. Is that only flour, or flour with anti-caking agents - or flour with other agents they aren't obliged to tell us about?

Flour has to be enriched with several vitamins before it's allowed to be sold

 

[Mrs Miggins]

There's a law in ingredients writing that says that anything below 1% (I think) doesn't have to be declared. It means that all sorts of malarkey can be added without appearing on the side of the box.

So something like 65% of the ingredients are less than 1%!

 

[Chairman Meow]

But it's a matter of degree surely? With say, growing your own wheat to mill to bake your bread and keeping your own aninmals and growing your own veg at one extreme, and living on, say, Pot Noodles at the other extreme. Home cooking is somewhere in the middle. At least if you are cooking your own food you have a better idea of what is in it, as you are closer to the means of production, as it were.

 

[CharlieAddict]

urgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tuna is one of the best sources of protein. that in veggie soup takes a minute or two to cook.

okay, the taste is not everyone...

 

[og ogilby]

So something like 65% of the ingredients are less than 1%!

No one has explained yet the point you made earlier about the combined percentages of the ingredients in the list of my ready meal only adds up to 35%.

Any one?

 

[Chairman Meow]

Well, as ingredients are in order of quantity, there's a load of water and precious little meat in there for a start.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

No one has explained yet the point you made earlier about the combined percentages of the ingredients in the list of my ready meal only adds up to 35%.

Any one?

They are trying to lull the consumer into thinking that they are the only things in the dish which is clearly not true on closer inspection. The rest must be made up of stuff that would put off their target market but which they have no legal obligation to list.

I think you should send them an email asking them to explain themselves!! In fact I will do it myself if you like...

 

[og ogilby]

Well, as ingredients are in order of quantity, there's a load of water and precious little meat in there for a start.

Is that such a bad thing? I know I am paying for water but I'd be pissed off if the meal was dry.

As for the meat. I didn't think there was too little of it when I ate the meal. It was nice.

 

[_angel_]

tuna is one of the best sources of protein. that in veggie soup takes a minute or two to cook.

okay, the taste is not everyone...

*vomits*

Even the thought of the smell of tuna makes me ill. It's a banned substance in my house.

 

[og ogilby]

I think you should send them an email asking them to explain themselves!! In fact I will do it myself if you like...

I'm to god damn lazy to cook my own food never mind write and send out emails so you go ahead and send them one.

I'm sure you will make a much better job of it than I would do anyway.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

I'm to god damn lazy to cook my own food never mind write and send out emails so you go ahead and send them one.

Ace - I'll let you know what reply I get!

 

[Chairman Meow]

Nowt wrong with a bit of water, just pointing out that its the biggest ingredient - probably bulking it out a bit. Meat on the other hand is a pricier ingredient, so the manufacturers will be looking to minimise the amount of it. Its dead easy to cook fresh and nutritious meals for much less money than ready meals - at the very least it means you won't be eating a load of preservatives. And it tastes nicer too. I eat the odd ready meal, but don't kid myself that they aren't usually pretty poor nutitionally.

 

[og ogilby]

Ace - I'll let you know what reply I get!

I emailed a company called Mumtaz (ready meal currys) about six months ago asking them what percentage of the 14g of fat listed on their nutrition guide was saturated fat. I got an email back to tell me they were looking into it and they would get back to me when they had an answer. They never did. I haven't eaten one of their currys since.



Edited because I wrote 14% rather than 14g.

 

[Jazzz]

The simple answer is that fresh produce just has way more nutrients than anything else.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

I emailed a company called Mumtaz (ready meal currys) about six months ago asking them what percentage of the 14g of fat listed on their nutrition guide was saturated fat. I got an email back to tell me they were looking into it and they would get back to me when they had an answer. They never did. I haven't eaten one of their currys since.



Edited because I wrote 14% rather than 14g.

Well I don't honestly expect a decent reply but it's always worth a try! And I'm sad enough to find it fun

 

[og ogilby]

The simple answer is that fresh produce just has way more nutrients than anything else.

Even if it's been sat in the supermarket or my kitchen for a week?

That's why I choose to buy frozen veg rather than fresh. I believe it to be better for me. Am I wrong?

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Even if it's been sat in the supermarket or my kitchen for a week?

That's why I choose to buy frozen veg rather than fresh. I believe it to be better for me. Am I wrong?

I find frozen veg pretty yucky though. Peas are all right but the texture of other stuff changes and I don't like it

 

[fredfelt]

I tend to avoid ready meals as I love to cook. After working on a computer all day I want to create something 'real' ,feel textures and be creative.

Learn to cook and you can get a meal organised almost as quickly as it takes to cook a ready meal and is always so much tastier.

Cooking with someone brings you closer, where as you'll probably consume your ready meal in front of the TV.

Don't forget that most ready meals are very energny intensive. Yes they are cooked in bulk but often need to rely on a network of cold storage vans, shop fridges which generally do not have doors on them, have a short shelf life and they don't take advantage of seasonal or local produce.

You can also be sure that most ready meals ingreedends are the cheapest. So, for instance, if your meal has eggs in it they'll be battery.

Not to mention the often non recyclable packaging that comes with the meals.

I prefere food cooked with love rather than designed by scientists.

 

[CharlieAddict]

I emailed a company called Mumtaz (ready meal currys) about six months ago asking them what percentage of the 14g of fat listed on their nutrition guide was saturated fat. I got an email back to tell me they were looking into it and they would get back to me when they had an answer. They never did. I haven't eaten one of their currys since.



Edited because I wrote 14% rather than 14g.

you had time to write an email yet you had no time to cook?

 

[Mrs Miggins]

you had time to write an email yet you had no time to cook?

All that chopping can get a bit tiresome

 

[story]

I don't understand your post story.

I could understand it if you said it was made by a machine rather than a person.

You said "How would it be better if I'd made it at home?"

I'm saying that it would be better if were made at home because home-made would be made by a person, while a ready-meal would (in all likelihood) be made in a series of machines.

I contend that food made a by a person has more... well, soul, or something than food made by a machine.

I suppose it could be argued that machine-made is best, but I'd disagree.