Practical - Ready Meals: how bad are they for your health?

The British Medical Journal conducted a study comparing the nutritional values of recipes from television chefs and supermarket ready meals. I have chosen to ignore the recipes as they are not relevant in this project.

In the table above you can see in the second column is the results for ready meals. Based on the nutritional guidelines given by the World Health Organisation, only 9 of the ready meals are within the range for the daily guidlines for protein, and only 4% meet the range for the guidelines for sodium. Ready meals are famously bad for having excessive amounts of salt. In 2003, the FSA, or Food Standards Agency conducted a study which found high salt levels in 83% of ready meals sold by supermarkets. In the survey by the FSA, all six products contained over 2.4 g of salt per portion, which represents 40% of the recommended daily allowance of salt. Since that study though, meals have been rethought and salt content lowered, according to this BMJ study. 

Also in this table and the traffic light system above you can see the macronutrients of an average ready meal based on the sample of 100 tested in the study. As you can see, the saturated fat is in a red colour - symbolising its unhealthiness. Next are fat and salt, which exceed the daily guidlines by a smaller amount, but are still unhealthy for you. The only green macronutrient was sugar.

These traffic light systems are required on food packaging by law in an effort to cut down on obesity and improve health. However, the unhealthiness of these meals go far beyond what is shown on the label.

Ready meal manufacturers are require to show macronutrients but aren't required to evidence the vitamins found in the meals. Due to the way these meals are prepared and cooked, vitamins can be lost in the process. Vitamins are easily lost eg. beetroot turns water purple - these are the vitamins being released into the water. When the water is disposed of so are the vitamins. We can prevent this at home by steaming and preparing the ingredients ourselves but the method of cooking is out of our control when eating a ready meal. Meals that do contain vitamins are pumped full of synthetic vitamins and minerals that our bodies cannot digest. Some meats also found in ready meals can contain carcinogens due to the way they are cooked. 

As well as synthetic minerals and vitamins, meals have additives and preservatives added to them to improve the longevity and taste of the meals. These additives can alther processes in your body and can even cause in extreme cases diseases and conditions which threaten lives.

Manufacturers can also replace ingredients with others to save cost. For example, olive oil which is used in traditional dishes and has health benefits against cardio vascular disease, is replaced with rapeseed oil which doesn't carry the same benefits. 

The meals are smaller but often more calorie dense than other meals. This means that you will not be eating as much and feeling less full than you would an average homecooked meal - but still consuming more calories.

Joanna Blythman is a food journalist and investigated ready meals. She found that food manufacturers, carry out little or no preparation of raw ingredients. Instead, they buy treated ingredients, mainly frozen or dried, from a range of other companies and cook them. Most of the meat, vegetables and fish in our convenience food has been transported and stored while frozen. Typically, it is kept at sub-zero temperatures for months, even years, but when it is thawed and cooked, it can be marketed as 'fresh'.

Nicky Taylor, a journalist for the Daily Mail undertook a challenge where she could only eat ready meals for a month for every meal. 
After the month was over she had lost 8lbs (due to the small portion sizes), but had a bad cold, mood and bowel problems. She was also deficient in Vitamin C, Iron and beta carotene and her levels of HDL (good cholesterol) had dropped 20% which put her at risk of cardio vascular problems.

Summary

Ready meals are unhealthy due to their excessive salt and fat content and their lack of vitamins and fresh ingredients. This is replaced by an excess of synthetic chemicals which can cause illnesses. There is also the labour side of the meals, as they are mass produced they are prepared in factories. To counteract all these bad elements of ready meals I need to create something focusing on well proportioned, fresh ingredients full of vitamins, and use recipes low in salt and fat.