What is the difference between..........

When I think of processed food I think additives, E numbers, names on products I don't understand.

Mixing food with electrical appliances just saves time and is just part of the cooking process.

The thing with cooking yourself you know what is put into a meal.

Steam vegetables they keep all the flavour in.

...it also helps no end to be a slender young lassie, Bags

I've not been on the exercise bike for a couple of days. Must have fretted away a few hundred calories.

Nothing, if you like it. At least, that's what I think, but I know my views on food are not fashionable – e.g. I have no fear of fats or other worries about food. I just eat what I like. Pork chops with cream and mushroom sauce this evening, and some courgettes and sweet peppers. Yum.

We are lucky to have so much choice and should appreciate our luck, I think.

We had a delicious ready meal from Waitrose the other evening. Cheese and mushroom ravioli bake. We had spinach with it and it was lovely. Plenty of protein according to the label, so what's the problem?

Cheese is processed food. So is fresh butter. So is fresh milk and cream (pasteurising). Yogurt. Cocoa. Coffee, Tea. All processed.

You could even say fresh meat is processed food – processed grass and other vegetation, or in the case of chickens, if free range then processed grass, insects, worms, etc; if barn raised processed soy and fishmeal.

But, joking apart, what I understand by 'unprocessed' is mainly stuff you have to cook from scratch yourself rather than just reheat.

flickety, I think of eating, even when I enjoy it, as refuelling. Well... it is. That's its main purpose, not pleasure. Getting pleasure from food is a bonus.

but for people physically unable to cook themselves, how reliable are these food delivery services? Apparently cooked fresh then frozen, but is there some processing in between at some point?

jings...shoulders back, deep breath, onwards and all that...

I think the main difference is that you know what is in the meal if you cook it from scratch but don't if you buy it ready made (processed) - your choice. Unless of course you are a chemist and then you perhaps do know what all those things in the list are.

Most of our meals are made from scratch but there is nothing wrong with the occassional ready made although it is always important to recognise that you usually get what you paid for.

I like cooking but it's not the same when I'm doing it just for me. When I visit the family, my DSs tend to take over the kitchen and sometimes do the same when they come to me. No complaints - they are both excellent and imaginative cooks. Veggie ready meals usually don't attract me - it's so easy just to cook some pasta and throw in some pesto and/or parmesan. That's my default position.

I find the vegetarian ready main course items very variable indeed. I usually try them all once and then only buy the ones that are worth having. I have not found a decent ready meal veggie lasagne anywhere.

I do use frozen soya based meat free, mince. I don't often read the lables though. Perhaps I should start.

Processing means -- Food is to be prepared for cooking.

Cooking means -- Food is prepared and ready to Serve.

I was only asking what is the difference........... Oh, never mind.

jo8 it is the eating that is the pleasure, not the cooking. I cook because I enjoy eating a wide range of different foods and flavours. I am always cutting recipes out of magazines and newspapers - and using them.

I have rarely enjoyed a ready meal.

Just been doing that myself

I find cooking a meal, eating it and having a glass of wine while dissecting the day with DH one of life's greatest pleasures!

Eating is a pleasure.

It's not a pleasure for me. Tbh. Never has been.

Never been harmed by a ready meal.

Agree Flickety

Cooking means food is a pleasure, food processing means food as fuel.

Cook-chill products like lasagne and cottage pie start to lose quality once they have reached their best before date. Once opened they have to be treated like fresh food as bacteria can then multiply and contaminate the food.

Even Waitrose and Marks and Sparks? I like ready meals.

Processed has all those funny additives so supermarkets can keep them on sale longer but as soon as the air makes contact they start to detereate hense the best buy date on all fresh food stuffs.Well that my idea of it anyway don't know if it's right or not.

I fall into two of those two categories.

Food is processed to meet a demand. Shelf life is extended, food can be eaten out of season and the ready meal industry was built on the needs of the working mother, single person, students, the elderly and people who simply don't want to cook.

Just read the ingredients on the back of the packaging if you want to know what's in there.

Processed food also has various additives to preserve and add colour/taste/bulk up etc. I dread to think what's in most processed foods.