Who cooks real food these days or do we all slap ready meals in the oven?

I like cooking and try to incorporate fresh vegetables into our meals most days but I often succumb to the temptation of the odd ready meal or two.

With todays kids getting fatter due to poor diet and lack of exercise should we try harder to provide more traditional meals of the meat & three veg variety.

I am not thin by any stretch of the imagination and wouldn't want to give teenagers of today hangups about their weight, but I can't help but notice that loads of young girls today have big bellys hanging over the tops of their trousers. If they are this size at 15 what in heavens will they be like at 40???

I was brought up by my grandparents who also had a rather large garden full of veges. If I wanted a salad sandwich out into the garden I went to pick everything I needed.

I love cooking real food and try to do so as often as I can. My son will not eat chips! He is happy to sit down to a bowl full of cooked pasta with or without sauce.
My daughter isn't very keen on veges she prefers 'dead animal'. She also loves chips.

I hate the increasing number of households who seem to be pandering to their kids appetites. Both me and my husband were brought up to eat what was put in front of us. If there was something being cooked that we didn't like we had a little of it and we ate it!

That is how we bring our kids up. There is none of this cooking six different meals for each person.

I do however on occasion sucumbe the ease of the microwave meal. We have them on standby in case there isn't enough time to get a proper tea done before the little ones have to go to bed.

Perhaps I am just too old fashioned?

Moon Maiden

I like a mix of both. If I get in from work late and can't be @rsed to cook, a ready made meal!

However, I enjoy cooking and like experiment. So a love to use fresh foods, although I sometimes use frozen veg (a cardinal sin, for an ex chef).

I like pie's, stews and chilli's so fresh ingredients are a major factor in these foods.

Fresh food and real meals are always better tha frozen IMHO.

I used to eat ready made meals alot and cooked every so often as I like cooking. I would usually do this when I had friends over as its more fun cooking for people. I always bought count on us range from M&S or Tescos low fat range etc. Low fat everything, and I was overweight.
Now that I'm on the 'Atkins Nutrional Approach to Eating' (not calling it a diet!), I cook all the time. I tend to cook, meat or fish and some sort and fresh vegatables and make really interesting nice salads. I skip the potatoes and the pasta etc. I feel so much healthier eating all the vegs and salads (I eat more now then i ever did) and it doesn't take long to cook a nice lamb chop with some parmasan on, or grill a trout with some olive oil and garlic in. Morrocan chicken is a fav to cook also. It has lots of lovely fresh ingrediants and herbs and spices in and is inexpensive to make.
I now refuse to buy ready made processed food these days and to be honest they are such a rip off. Ok, yes meat can be expensive, but to be fair I probably spend the same amount on food now as I did when I bought ready made cr@p!! I even make my own salad dressings now. So fresh and you just make what you need and don't end up with a bottle of processed dressing sat in the fridge with hundreds of added preservatives in.

Moon Maiden...not old fashioned at all....sensible I would say. My mum used to put food in front of me and I would eat it. There was no such thing as 'but I don't like it' in my house, until we had tried it. Thats one thing that winds me up now is when people say they don't like something and they've never even tried it! Go on be adventurous!! I guess a lot of what we eat now can be as a result of how we were brought up and the advertising industry. Look at all these adverts for all these snacks in kids lunch boxes, ready made things full of cr@p.


:D

Originally posted by Moon Maiden
That is how we bring our kids up. There is none of this cooking six different meals for each person.


Six meals per person? Wow, that is one household I'd like to live in!

I much prefer home cooked grub to the convenience foods that are so widely available today. Allthough time constraints mean that we have to resort to the meal in a box more often than not.

Give me the mother in laws meat and tatty pie any day.
I take my own plate, it's like a bin lid.
I also like a good stew with thick gravy and dumplings made by my better half, I peel the veg :D I think thats the secret.

What really does my nut in is when my son allways leaves something on the plate no matter how much grub is thrust upon him then makes a move for the crisp cupboard.

Cue: Old on a mo get that finished first.
Some people in this world would be grateful of that food you are wasting.

Reply:Yeah yeah send it to em then.

At this point I will comment no further :D

Thanks to the destruction of tradition from the 1960s onwards, old arts such as cooking that would normally have been passed on from mother to daughter, are now dying with every grandmother who closes her mortal eyes for the last time.

Now, idiots such as Jamie Oliver step in to fill the void with his noxious slop.

The same applies with the old crafts that a father would have taught a son. Now most boys would have trouble hammering a nail and using a saw. Nevermind, TV fills the void with endless trendy DIY programmes.

It is saddening what elderly people take to the grave because society just did not want to know. Now, it is at the mercy of TV, vile cooks and dodgy tradesmen.

Well said. It's tradition, not sexism.

When my lady dosn't cook, I sometimes have a dinner in a tin. Other times I have a sandwich.

when I went to uni 12 years ago I knew that lots of my friends wouldn't be great cooks. I've always been keen on cooking - so much so that my 'going away/new home' present was a couple of fine saucepans (I still use them almost every day) and a good sabatier.

Even though I was prepared it was still a shock to see how many mates just couldn't cook AT ALL past pot-noodles and toast. But they happily just ate out all the time and got poor and greasy etc. I imagine that in the last few years this trend has just continued and now most youngsters probably don't know what to do with a parsnip or how to bake a cake. Or maybe quite a few kids have become 'showman chefs' a la Jamie O - at least he's put cooking on the agenda with music or sport as a way to excell and be, if not cool, then at least not desperately uncool (like gardening or making your own clothes still is).

Personally - I sometimes buy quick meals such as stuffed pasta or pizza or fresh soups to have in a hurry. It's useful to have a couple in the freezer for emergencies - and IMO the quality of these meals has taken a rise for the better in recent years. I remember when curry in a tin, smash and such like were the only ready-meals around - revolting!

At the moment I feel we're on the crest of a wave - fresh ingredients are still available if you want them and good ready meals are as well. But looking at the future (e.g. USA) it will get hard to buy things like potatoes and leeks as they'll become speciality items.

BTW - Frozen veg can be superior to fresh in some situations - nothing wrong with it in principle - just buy peas and a few other things and you can have greens all winter without having to fly them in from Kenya. Same as microwave - as a tool it's bril - but I wouldn't want to cook a whole meal in one!

I think that food is very central to our existance and psyche - food is the tangible expression of love - the most basic thing you can give anyone. When my (18m) baby refuses to eat something that we've lovingly prepared it cuts to my heart! and I feel really personally rejected! When guests eat something nice that I've cooked and say so we all get a warm glow.

Originally posted by Lickszz

Now, idiots such as Jamie Oliver step in to fill the void with his noxious slop.



Actually top British chefs like Marco White, Gordon Ramsey have been instrumental in keeping the tradition of good old British food going. Go into one of there restuaraunts and I bet your bottom dollar one of their signature dishes will be either

Bread and Butter Pudding
Bangers and Mash
Rice Pudding
etc etc

Admittedly it may not resemble they traditional dish we know. The point is they are proud of our food heritage and althought classicly trained by French Chefs, promote our food culture.

BTW I can cook a mean Meat and Potato Pie - Wicked

Originally posted by mikey
Actually top British chefs like Marco White, Gordon Ramsey have been instrumental in keeping the tradition of good old British food going. Go into one of there restuaraunts and I bet your bottom dollar one of their signature dishes will be either

Bread and Butter Pudding
Bangers and Mash
Rice Pudding
etc etc

Admittedly it may not resemble they traditional dish we know. The point is they are proud of our food heritage and althought classicly trained by French Chefs, promote our food culture.

BTW I can cook a mean Meat and Potato Pie - Wicked

But my point is that if the tradition had been passed on there would be no place for all of these TV Chefs/programmes. They are only making a killing out of what your gran already probably knew and used to do.