POLL: How often do you have "ready made" meals?

8 years ago

Gesunder Lunch · More Info

Prepared meals or "TV dinners" can make life a little easier when you are working full time or just when you need a little break from cooking. How often are you eating these kinds of meals?

VOTE and tell us about it in the comments!

Daily

Once a week

Once a month

Once a year

Never

Other - Tell us below!

Featured Answer

Mark

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

I prepare a lot of meals and freeze them. I usually spend one whole day a week cooking different things and then put them in servings of two and then we can still have a healthy meal in no time by reheating them. Even when I make batches of soup I still freeze them in individual containers so that if either of us want soup we can just pull out a container and enjoy home made soup.

Preparing meals ahead of time is such a time saver for us.

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Comments (48)

Hannah Rivera
8 years ago
Never
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Sound Painting Solutions, LLC
8 years ago
We need to cook more:(. Failures of a business owner.
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Momof5x
8 years ago
I cook all the time and large meals as we are a large family. There are no TV type dinner where I live but there are ready made ones. I see mostly university students buying them as not time for them to cook or they just don't want too lol.

Having said that, I am wary of some types of frozen cooked food.
Nancy Munroe
8 years ago
Very easy to make and freeze your own ready made dinners. Doesn't say anything about having to be store bought.
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Julia & Elizabeth
8 years ago
I love the hot foods at Whole Foods.
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Cabinets & Designs
8 years ago
We prefer home-cooked meals or dining out but prepared meals help on busy days!
acm
8 years ago
you left out delivered meals -- we probably have Indian or Chinese (or Mexican or sushi) delivered twice a week. would love to cook more, but life is going faster and faster and it's just not going to happen...
Ann
8 years ago
Like Belle, we occasionally do the meal deals from Whole Foods, but that's it for "ready made" meals for us.
Beth Bevington
8 years ago
I love leftovers, and the freezer helps. With Thanksgiving behind us, I spent today making turkey day lasagna. Layered
Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy. So good in January. I like to frequent the grocery store salad bar for
Peas, corn, beets, hard boiled eggs, things I don't want to have a huge amount of. Add my own greens.
M L Radcliffe
8 years ago
I buy them for lunches at work but rarely for dinner at home. We eat leftovers or once a week go out to dinner.
curlieq
8 years ago
I just spent the past hour chopping (and sautéing half of the) onions, peppers, zucchini for pizza tonight (DH loves rolling out the bagged market dough!). I also took half the undressed salad from Thanksgiving, sautéed it with more greens and white beans for lunches this week (no cafeteria where I work). Does this count for "prepared meals"?
Kristine
8 years ago
Never frozen dinners from the supermarket. Oh, there is an exception: the really good frozen pizza my natural food co-op just started stocking:) Never take-out because there's nothing tasty in my area. I do make pasta sauce and soup and freeze in serving size portions.
diyer59
8 years ago
"TV dinners" are horrible--high in salt (sodium) and fat. If I want to get something "ready made" I opt for a healthy choice I've carefully looked over. But 99% of the time, I cook good meals from scratch.
tipmax
8 years ago
I almost said never since I cook and can ( even make my own beer) all the time, but there is fried chicken and pizza. I guess that grocery store fried chicken and Pizza Hut count as a prepared meal even though I consider them a food group on their own since I love both.
moenna
8 years ago
I have cooked a full meal in the evening, almost all my life. I am now 75. Even now and living on my own, I still cook and bake things for breakfast. I do usually, try to cook two meals at a time. One to eat and one to freeze for later. Just lately, since I hurt my back and arm, my daughter has brought me some grocery store, prepared dinners to microwave, which did help enormously. However, as long as I am able, I still prefer to cook each evening.
Karla Faraday
8 years ago
I wish I had time to prepare ahead of time. And healthy meals preferred.
grandmabetty
8 years ago
I live alone and don't feel like cooking something and having it several days in a row or if I do its quick and not fully health. Now I have containers that are divided into three sections so I make meals with heathy food. I need a certain portion size and these are great for that. So I make 3-4 meals and divide them into the containers. Then for a meal I pull one out and microwave for about 2 minutes and then eat. I learned potatoes don't freeze but recently found Scrambled eggs freeze well and I might start doing breakfast that way too.
mowhui
8 years ago
Once in a while when the schedule is tight. Otherwise, everything else served on the table is healthy home-cooked meals.
magada
8 years ago
I probably would if ever i came across anything remotely edible but industrially prepared food is just too disgusting.
slubin7065
8 years ago
I hate to cook. My only hesitation when I got married (45 years ago) was that I would have make dinner every night for the rest of my life! So, I find every short cut to put a healthy dinner in the table. it just takes too much time to shop, prepare and clean up dinner that takes about 20 minutes to eat. We have just GOT to find an easier way. For those of you who love to cook, I apologize.
J J
8 years ago
I prepare healthy meals, which I freeze. In the morning, it all goes in a crockpot! Easy and delicious.
moenna
8 years ago
For those who have limited time or hate prepared, store bought food, a pressure cooker is the way to go. They have come a long way from the 50's. I have asked for one for Christmas and keeping my fingers crossed.
Judy Mishkin
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
i don't work 'out' so i have lots of time to cook that others don't, so i do. but on a weekend if one of us is hungry and the other isnt, i have a stash of frozen indian boxes from trader joe's that are awesome. amy's is a good brand too.
laurielynne
8 years ago
I was going to say "never" but then I realized that I do rely heavily on the grocery BBQ'd chickens, especially in the summer if it's too hot to cook. Depending on how many I have for dinner, I'll grab one or two of these, make a couple of salads, and dinner is done in a snap - with left overs used for soup, stir fry, salads or sandwiches during the week. Also, I will buy a frozen lasagne if they are on sale. For the cost, time, mess and effort it takes to make my own, it's more than worth it to me to buy them.
Delora Dickey
8 years ago
Due to my husband's work schedule, I have become an "expert" on quick meals that take 15-20 minutes to toss together. Since it's just the 2 of us, we eat in the living room on TV trays and watch Netflix shows for 2 hours. We visit/talk when he comes home, over dishes, and at bedtime. He gets his down time and we get together time.
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8 years ago
Slow cookers can be a real life saver!
Carol Tecchio
8 years ago
I make my own. I buy "family packs" & make multiple meals, package them for the freezer, & either finish cooking them, or microwave them. When the 3 girls were home, we used to BBQ in the summer & make 10 or so meals at one time & freeze them. In the winter, I would have beef stew, chicken soup, chicken cacciatore, & chili all going at one time on Sundays.
pasovasz
8 years ago
I spend my time sewing but do not like to cook, so...I cook once and we eat twice of the same food. Skip a day or 2 between, have a dinner "out" or, if we are lucky, a neighbor invites us for dinner, even if he is just making tacos. He loves to cook.
mynxr
8 years ago
Never. I have a severe gluten allergy so we make all our meals from scratch.
Sam Hope
8 years ago
We never do TV dinners. We don't even own a microwave. But we do the rotisserie chickens from the deli quite a bit, and they are effing delicious. I also use the meat off them for other meals- chicken alfredo, chicken noodle soup, etc. They're pretty awesome when you want something real, but also something super easy. We're also guilty of going to our favorite Mexican joint every Sunday. And pizza and a movie on Fridays. It gets especially bad during kayaking season... work all day, paddle after work, suddenly it's nine o' clock and we haven't even thought about food! If we didn't have convenience, it'd be a heck of a lot of peanut butter 'n' jelly sandwiches for din.
fjbletsgobrandon
8 years ago
We never eat "ready made" meals. My Mom was a fantastic cook and everything was made from scratch. Even curds and whey instead of store bought cottage cheese. We buy a whole beef every year from my brother (its organic and about half the price of store bought) and sometimes a 4-H animal if we know they have been raised hormone free. We have two big freezers that are always full. We catch our own steelhead and salmon. Buy farm eggs from one of my girlfriends. Even when I was working two jobs when my kids were little, lots of crock pot meals tossed together before off to work, but never ready made meals. For one thing ready made meals are about twice to three times as expensive as homemade and all those preservatives are just scary when I think about them adding up in our cells for decades.
mynxr
8 years ago
We buy half a cow in Ohio and bringing it back to NC. Even with the cost of gas, it's cheaper than buying the same thing here. Plus, we know the farmer so we know exactly what goes in and most importantly what doesn't go into her beef. She takes the cows up to Cleveland for butchering because he flash freezes and vac seals and labels everything. A neighbor's son in NY raises pigs and we get half a pig every year from them. I would love to raise chickens but we would have to cut down on travel or find someone willing to tend them while we were gone. We catch our own flounder, sheepshead, and anything else that will bite in addition to crab and shrimp. This season, we plan on trying our hand at oysters and digging clams. We do a soup pot for leftovers and when the containers in the freezer are full, we combine it with some homemade frozen broth and canned tomatoes to make soup. It's never the same twice but it's always good! I've never thought about buying a 4-H animal. Will have to look into that for next year.
lauren1
8 years ago
I've completely changed the way I eat this past year. I call it "virtually vegan" because my menu is vegan except for salmon (6 oz.) once each week and sardines (2 tins per week) as part of my new health regime. Prepared meals and TV dinners just don't fit the way I want to eat these days. I'm amazed at how easy it was to make the switch, how much energy I have, and how easy it has been to drop the excess weight while still enjoying satisfying meals.
حسام الزهراني
8 years ago
slubin7065
8 years ago
I knew a woman with 5 kids. When she was about 65 she tried to figure out how many meals she had prepared. Whatever the number, you couldn't find anyone in the world to sign up for that job. It's a labor of love. It's also ridiculous.
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MAP Consultants, LLC
8 years ago
I cook 90% of my meals at home, however, Trader Joe's has a great selection of frozen east indian fare that I will readily admit I will "heat and eat" about 1x a week if I am in a jam.
moenna
8 years ago
slubin7065 But millions have and still do - and enjoy it.
nhme
8 years ago
Absolutely never!

All it should take is reading one label on any given package, realize it is a box of chemicals, and that should put an end to it.
retirment
8 years ago
I love to cook and my family love to eat what I prepare. I am retired now so when I cook which is once a week, I make a large batch of every thing put them in servings in the freezer. larger servings for special days as in Sundays and when visitors drop in and servings for two. Each meal I just prepare veggies and a healthy hot meal is ready in less that 20 minutes. This way I have more time to go walking with my husband and the Grand Children when they visit. One Love.
Diane Fairbanks
8 years ago
After retiring early due to health problems, I was quite used to cooking my own meals and freezing extras for days when I didn't want to cook. However, this summer I fell and shattered my ankle, and was in a wheelchair w/cast for 2 months, making it very difficult to cook for any length of time. Thus, I had to resort to frozen dinners during that time period. I will say that I did not starve to death, but I enjoy my own cooking so much more! Plus, I don't use nearly as much salt as TV dinners do, but my food still has a lot more taste!
Alison
8 years ago
I'm a vegetarian, so that rules out a bunch of frozen meals and also don't have a microwave which rules out even more. I will occasionally get a frozen meal if I'm going to be somewhere with a microwave (1-2 times a year normally) as a treat. Also have a few frozen burritos and cans of soup ready as a backup in case I really don't feel up to cooking. Luckily I don't have a Trader Joe's anywhere nearby or I might grab frozen things more often. I love their vegetable gyoza. Haven't tried many other of their frozen meals.
prairiemoon2 z6b MA
3 years ago
We bought a standing freezer years ago and we use it all the time. We make home made soups, chilis, pasta sauce and fill the freezer with that. We don't buy meals in the freezer section of the supermarket, and only once in a blue moon, might buy some soups at Whole Foods.
decoenthusiaste
3 years ago
Love the Instant Pot my daughter got me, but twice a month there's a rotisserie chicken or fajitas from outside sources. Otherwise its all scratch made and sometimes garden raised. Friends own a bakery so their sourdough is always on my list. They sell their raw sourdough pizza dough so that's pre-baked and frozen to use as needed, since gluten-free is the rule here and their process seems to eliminate enough of it that there's no reaction.
Lars
3 years ago
Almost never. The only prepared meals we eat are sushi, which is very different from a TV dinner.
Elaine Ricci
3 years ago
I wouldn't quite say "daily", but several times a week at least.
Toronto Veterinarian
3 years ago
If they're home-made "ready made meals", how do I count that? Purchased ready-made meals? Probably never; I can't remember the last time I had them. Something that's ready made by me and stored in my freezer (chili, meat pies, stew, etc)? Probably 2-3 times a month on a yearly basis, but it's more seasonal.
Alexander Drache
7 months ago
I've tried several food deliveries but haven't found one that I really like yet. I just don't like the taste of cooked food.

POLL: How often do you have "ready made" meals?

Comments (48)

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