[milmol]

Can anyone shed any light on this which has been puzzling me lately ...

Being a lazy so & so, my standard mid week meal has generally been something like "curry for one" ready meal, potato waffles + birds eye crispy chicken, pasta with dolmio ready made sauce (carbonara being my favourite) or a frozen pizza.

Recently I have finally realised it would take little more effort (or skill) to prepare something fresh. I'm aware that ready meals & frozen stuff listed is full of preservatives, salt etc. and it would do me good to improve my diet generally.

But the thing is - if I, say, cook a diced up chicken breast (in olive oil) then eat it with mash potato which I've boiled in salted water and mashed with a big lump of butter & milk, then those things are bad too. So is there any benefit of making the latter in terms of eating healthier?

Another easy 'recipe' I found was a pork steak topped with cheese & bacon. Looks/sounds lovely and I would have that with boiled potatoes (again boiled in salt). Clearly again I know the cheese is regarded as 'unhealthy'.

I'm not suggesting I'm going to any great lengths to prepare extravagant dinners-for-one, but I'm just puzzled as to whether its worth making changes like these....
eg one of my current 'bad' dishes -vs- one of those suggested 'good' dishes.

Hopeful thanks in advance

[oscardelahoya]

The main thing is you know exactly what you are eating if you make it yourself. I wouldn't say cheese is unhealthy, just keep an eye on how much you are eating as it's high calorie. If you make things yourself you can get higher quality ingredients if you want to, or prepare things a slightly different way to make them better. I tend to grate cheese instead of slicing it as a smaller portion goes a longer way then. You could try adding different things to flavour mashed potatoes, maybe herbs or cream cheese? If you're going to add butter and milk do you really need salt as well? It is quite easy to find alternative flavours for things if you want to.

Curry is one thing I would rather make than buy ready made, it's easy,doesn't take that long and you can use whatever meat and vegetables in it.

You can buy pizza bases and put your own topping on, use fresh meat cooked yourself and vegetables, even make your own tomato topping if you want, add a bit of cheese. You could make your own wholemeal base if you could be arsed, that takes a while though.

[milmol]

thanks - definitely some "food for thought" there! groan

[HollyC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by milmol

Can anyone shed any light on this which has been puzzling me lately ...

Being a lazy so & so, my standard mid week meal has generally been something like "curry for one" ready meal, potato waffles + birds eye crispy chicken, pasta with dolmio ready made sauce (carbonara being my favourite) or a frozen pizza.

Recently I have finally realised it would take little more effort (or skill) to prepare something fresh. I'm aware that ready meals & frozen stuff listed is full of preservatives, salt etc. and it would do me good to improve my diet generally.

But the thing is - if I, say, cook a diced up chicken breast (in olive oil) then eat it with mash potato which I've boiled in salted water and mashed with a big lump of butter & milk, then those things are bad too. So is there any benefit of making the latter in terms of eating healthier?

Another easy 'recipe' I found was a pork steak topped with cheese & bacon. Looks/sounds lovely and I would have that with boiled potatoes (again boiled in salt). Clearly again I know the cheese is regarded as 'unhealthy'.

I'm not suggesting I'm going to any great lengths to prepare extravagant dinners-for-one, but I'm just puzzled as to whether its worth making changes like these....
eg one of my current 'bad' dishes -vs- one of those suggested 'good' dishes.

Hopeful thanks in advance

I'd say that it is worth making the changes, because, as oscardelahoya said, you can adjust what you put in it.

For example, you could make mash with garlic olive oil, instead of milk and butter - very tasty. And, making your own pizza, you can add more veg (peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms etc) and slightly less cheese (or use a low fat cheese), which would make it a lot healthier and tastier than a frozen one.

Your pork steak topped with cheese and bacon sounds yum - you could have it with boiled baby new potatoes (with just a little salt in the water) and veg. The cheese and bacon doesn't necessarily make it an unhealthy meal - it depends on the quantities and how often you eat it.

I also cook for one, but I tend to cook quite large quantities and the weekend and freeze them (like cottage pie, casseroles, chilli, bolognese), so with a bit of time spent at the weekend, I have quite a few frozen ready meals to eat during the week.

[milmol]

good advice thanks

[Geiger]

Cooking meals yourself does, as oscardelahoya says, give you the advantage of knowing exactly what goes into it. The scientists who now manufacture our food have shown themselves time and time again to be terrible at judging how much salt (and sugar) needs to go in meals. Whether salt is really the evil it's made out to be is questionable (people are always looking for that one ingredient that's to blame for all our ills), but in a packaged meal it's obviously a sign of a highly processed and thus questionable food.

I wouldn't worry too much about the individual components of any meal. There's no real consensus on which nutrient is the problem in our diet. All kinds of diets exist throughout the world - high/low carb, high/low fat, high/low - and do a fine job of feeding their people. The only diet we know that isn't working is the Western diet - full of food created by scientists in laboratories and produced in giant factories, lots of meat and little veg, lots of refined grains and sugars, etc. Scientists, people with vested interests and fad dieters are forever looking for that one nutrient that's the problem - but I don't think it exists, it's the entire makeup of the Western diet that's to blame.

The meals you propose sound fine. Is meat and dairy really the problem in our diet? The relative health of the France compared to us would suggest not. If you were looking for ways to make them healthier, I would suggest having most of the plate be plant-based - namely vegetables (excluding potatoes). Often I think what we're not eating is just as important as what we are eating. The increasingly large portions of meat may have pushed veg off the plates of many meat-eaters - not to mention the side order of chips! The old British way of meat and two veg probably had a lot of sense to it.

[milmol]

i am starting to feel inspired!!

[mrsgrumpy49]

I don't think cooking meals from scratch necessarily needs a lot more time or even 'a recipe'.
A healthy example being some grilled meat and steamed veg. Or maybe some fish lightly sauteed in some butter,
Or any number of variations with pasta.
Even cooking a whole chicken is no big deal. I live alone and still do that. It will last another two or three days and you can ring the changes how you serve it. On the last day I cook up a broth.
I also make my own bread cakes, freeze and use as necessary. A meal is sometimes just a bacon and mushroom butty!
The main advantage imo to doing it yourself is more control of the ingredients - including less preservatives. In fact often they use 'synthetic cheese' in ready meals.
This weekend I am making a stew in the slow cooker with tinned toms, potatoes, onions, leeks, a pack of lamb pieces etc. I've run out of red wine but might put some Guinness in it! It'll last a couple of days - I might add some dumplings the second day, or add some spices, or cook up some Yorkshire puds... The thing is that once you have your 'base' you can change it about.

[MICH78]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geiger

Cooking meals yourself does, as oscardelahoya says, give you the advantage of knowing exactly what goes into it. The scientists who now manufacture our food have shown themselves time and time again to be terrible at judging how much salt (and sugar) needs to go in meals. Whether salt is really the evil it's made out to be is questionable (people are always looking for that one ingredient that's to blame for all our ills), but in a packaged meal it's obviously a sign of a highly processed and thus questionable food.

I wouldn't worry too much about the individual components of any meal. There's no real consensus on which nutrient is the problem in our diet. All kinds of diets exist throughout the world - high/low carb, high/low fat, high/low - and do a fine job of feeding their people. The only diet we know that isn't working is the Western diet - full of food created by scientists in laboratories and produced in giant factories, lots of meat and little veg, lots of refined grains and sugars, etc. Scientists, people with vested interests and fad dieters are forever looking for that one nutrient that's the problem - but I don't think it exists, it's the entire makeup of the Western diet that's to blame.

The meals you propose sound fine. Is meat and dairy really the problem in our diet? The relative health of the France compared to us would suggest not. If you were looking for ways to make them healthier, I would suggest having most of the plate be plant-based - namely vegetables (excluding potatoes). Often I think what we're not eating is just as important as what we are eating. The increasingly large portions of meat may have pushed veg off the plates of many meat-eaters - not to mention the side order of chips! The old British way of meat and two veg probably had a lot of sense to it.

I think this is very true. If you look at the older generations now in their 70s and 90s, very few of them are overweight compared to the rest of the population. They also tend to eat the correct portion size as they are used to times where certain foods were more a luxury.

[oscardelahoya]

Frozen vegetables are good (apart from carrots, ugh) I usually keep some peppers, baby corn, sprouts, peas, green beans, diced onions and things like that, great for doing a quick stir fried portion of veg to go with a bit of meat or fish.

A slow cooker might be a good thing for you too, just chuck the ingredients in in the morning and then your dinner is ready when you get home. You can make all sorts in them.

[HollyC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oscardelahoya

Frozen vegetables are good (apart from carrots, ugh) I usually keep some peppers, baby corn, sprouts, peas, green beans, diced onions and things like that, great for doing a quick stir fried portion of veg to go with a bit of meat or fish.

A slow cooker might be a good thing for you too, just chuck the ingredients in in the morning and then your dinner is ready when you get home. You can make all sorts in them.

Definitely! I love my slow cooker and would recommend one