You are probably one of the consumers who buy ready-made meals from time to time to save time. Difficult sometimes, coming back from a busy day of work to take care of the house, the children and to tackle the stove at the same time! Industrial dishes have the advantage of being practical, an easy way to save time! However, even if they are practical, nothing replaces the homemade one and this for multiple reasons.
For health
A healthy lifestyle begins with a good diet, that is to say varied and balanced, in other words which bans industrial ready meals. These are harmful to health. Too salty, too greasy, filled with additives to give taste and flavor, ready-to-eat is far from healthy!
Just look at the labels when shopping: colorings, preservatives, added flavors, sauces. Especially since some dishes (such as cassoulet, lasagna) contain too much sodium and promote water retention, hypertension and even obesity! They increase the risk of bad cholesterol, diabetes and other cardiovascular diseases. With this type of food, you are harming your body. The benefits are therefore more than limited.
With homemade, you control the situation and create balanced recipes yourself. You don’t need to be a great cordon bleu, nor to produce haute cuisine. You just need to always have at your disposal an alliance of a few fresh and frozen vegetables, fish, meat and seasonal fruits and to concoct your menus for the week. Afterwards, you can add your own condiments, herbs and spices to enhance the taste.
For the taste
The taste, let’s talk about it! The raw materials used for these dishes are often in minimal quantities, drowned in other dubious and chemical ingredients! Salmon lasagna in trays ultimately contain very little fish, but a lot of salt and cream! Not very dietary, and in the end, the expected flavors are not there!
Whereas if you prepare them yourself, all you have to do is buy a packet of lasagne, slices of smoked salmon, garnish with light cream and parmesan! Nothing to do with the industrial dish, you reconnect with the original flavors of food and you detoxify your palate! The same goes for the vacuum-packed turkey fillets, made up of 84% turkey, water and preservatives! Taste education begins with homemade.
For traceability
Since the various food scandals (horse meat lasagna, in particular), consumers have become wary of ready meals! It’s hard to trust when you think you’re eating pork on your plate and the manufacturers lie to us about the quality and origin of the food.
This is a factor that encourages us to reconnect with home-made, the cultivation of the vegetable garden, to know where the food comes from. Consumers increasingly want to control what they have on their plate! Cooking at home as our grandmothers did allows us to reclaim food, its smells, its textures, without transformation or chemical deformation.
For the wallet
Another advantage of homemade! It will save you money! Industrial dishes are expensive. Buying processed ingredients weighs on the budget. If you buy prepared pancakes from a cheap brand, you can get by for 1.45 euros for 10. If you make them yourself, you can make 18 for 1.43 euros. In short, if you buy basic products in family sizes to make your recipes, you can achieve savings of more than 40%.
On the contrary, home-cooking allows you to tickle your culinary creativity and teaches you the art of cooking leftovers.
From one ingredient, you can create tasty and varied dishes: boiled potatoes with bay leaf can be made into a mash or a shepherd’s pie. If you have a yogurt maker, you can make your own yogurts with different tastes! This economic gain will be reflected both on your shopping note and on your household waste bill: less waste and packaging! With home-made, you consume intelligently and in an ecological way.
