Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet

There is nothing more likely to get me shouting at the TV than a ready-meal advert. Despite the pictures of happy families and sexy young singles, ready-meals INFURIATE me.

I posted some product pictures yesterday and asked the question – what’s wrong with these ready-meals? And you, my lovely readers, posted excellent, excellent answers. Ready-meals do have way too much salt in them (even the “healthy” ones), they’re expensive and most have an ingredients list as long as your arm. Plus they use high GI rice, too much salt and are boosted up with cheap filler ingredients.

However the issue that drives me batty? The thing that guarantees TV shouting in our house? It’s the almost total lack of vegetables in these supposed meals. Look at the pictures on my original post and you’ll see the majority content of the meal is meat and a grain-based carbohydrate. Oh yes, there’s a smattering of herbs in a couple of them and maybe a tinge of red, yellow or green peeping through, but these foods are 80 percent meat and grain.

This is not a meal, this is not something you should be eating as “dinner” and it’s certainly not a healthy choice.

These ready-meals perpetuate the idea that a normal dinner is meat and a grain-based carbohydrate. Vegetables barely get a look in. However, vegies are an important part of an evening meal. While a dinner without vegetables may fill you up, it’s incomplete and unbalanced.

Here in Australia we don’t eat anywhere near enough vegetable. I’m sure this is also true in the US and UK. To be healthy now and prevent ill-health in the future, you need to include at least five servings of vegetables a day. The dinner ratio guide I recommend is 50 percent of your plate should be vegetable with at least 25 percent protein and the rest grain-based carbohydrate.

While I understand ready meals offer ease and convenience in our time-poor society, I just want them to include a decent amount of vegetable. At least then they’d be proper meals.

What is Q & A Thursday?

This post is part of Q & A Thursday – a weekly burst of blogging, where you get to dictate the subject matter. Q & A Thursday is all about simple, practical and sensible answers to food, diet and health dilemmas sent in by readers. If you have a question you’d like answered, then either leave a comment or send me an email. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.

04 October, 2007