Food

Stop Eating Ready Meals — 5 Powerful Reasons To Change Now

Healthy eating is an important life choice.

If we taught kids how to cook at school, we would have a much healthier nation and we would not have to rely so much on ready meals. This industry worldwide is worth about $271 million in 2020 and set to grow at a rate of 4% a year.

… Too many Americans simply don’t know how to cook. Our diets, consisting of highly processed foods made cheaply outside the home thanks to subsidized corn and soy, have contributed to an enormous health crisis……. But what if the government put the tools of obesity prevention in the hands of children themselves, by teaching them how to cook? — Helen Zoe Veit.

Just imagine if this wonderful revolution came about. Harrassed parents would no longer have to worry so much about meal prep. Kids at home would be willing and able to step up. Ready meals would be mostly abandoned and we would have much happier and healthier families.

Home economics or cooking or whatever you want to call it is not on the school curriculum so dream on!

The harsh reality.

We are too busy, our kids cannot or will not help. We end up reaching out a weary arm in the supermarket and grabbing these ready meals. Why not? We can pop then into the oven or microwave. No more chopping up onions and getting weepy. If this sounds too good to be true, it is.

Here are 5 reasons why we should be avoiding these ready meals.

1. The vital nutrients are stripped out.

Once the food is processed, a lot of the minerals and vitamins are eliminated. As if that was not bad enough, the multivitamins we take to make up for this gap are also processed! The truth is that most vitamin supplements have only about 10% which is plant-derived and this allows it to be labeled as “ natural”. The other 90% is made up of a mix of synthetic nutrients which may or may not be beneficial. No clear evidence either way.

The take-home message is that freshly prepared whole foods including fruit, legumes, nuts, vegetables, fish, meat and eggs are the best way to go.

If you want to choose frozen vegetables, that is fine as they tend to preserve the essential nutrients when they are snap frozen.

2. Small portions are a trap.

Yes, they all come in smaller than usual portions, these ready meals. You might feel that this is a positive because you are eating a smaller amount of preservatives and additives. The only problem here is that you will be feeling hungry soon again and that means more unhealthy food.

When the manufacturers of these foods plan for longer shelf life, they are not betting on a longer life for you! Their aim is to produce food that will have a distant future sell-by date and will really be tasty. Here are just a few of all the preservatives and additives you get:-

· Monosodium glutamate (MSG)

· Sodium nitrate

· Brominated vegetables

· Artificial sweeteners

· Fructose syrup

Maize starch is used to bulk out the food. Chicken chorizo and potato bake is only likely to contain about 20% chicken. Not much protein in that!

3. What about vegetable oils?

Mosty of these ready meals are using vegetable oils and that may sound healthy but it is not. The most common ones used are:-

· Canola oil

· Sunflower oil

· Corn oil

· Cottonseed oil.

These have all been touted over recent years as much healthier than traditional saturated fats such as butter, coconut oil, and lard. But they are not really because the unsaturated fats they contain tend to oxidize when heated and that can cause inflammation in the body.

A much safer alternative is to use extra virgin oil and fatty fish such as salmon, sardines or herring.

4. Ready meals have too many chemicals.

Just look at the label with the ingredients and you will probably find some or all of the following:-

• Artificial flavor
• Sucralose
• Chromium amino acid chelate
• Mono and diglycerides
• Maltodextrin
• Dipotassium phosphate
• Glycerin
• Sodium caseinate

All these chemicals are safe for human consumption but is this what we really want all day and every day?

Here is a list of over 100 healthy foods and recipes. Now you have no excuse!

5. They contain too much sugar.

The ideal levels for sugar consumption are 36 grams for a man and 25 grams for a woman. When you choose a sweet and sour dish you might think that the sugar levels would be quite low. Just one serving of this ready meal has 50.7 grams of sugar!

When you count in all the sugar you have had in your coffee, cookies, chocolate, and soda you are going to be way over the limit.

Going over the top on sugar consumption may lead to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. This does not refer to the sugars contained in fruit, vegetables, and milk as these are regarded as healthy.

The most alarming message comes from the fact the mass production of ready meals food means that cost-cutting is on the menu. Not great for our health!

When you think that to cut down on time for simmering food, they just add salt. They can’t be bothered to add herbs (too expensive) so they just add in more salt!

Too much salt in food is a big health issue right now as it increases blood pressure which in turn puts unnecessary pressure on the heart, kidneys, and brain.

If we think of the food miles traveled, the storage, refrigeration and all the other logistics, we realize that it is about time to stop eating ready meals.

Time for the chopping board and some onions!