Quick Ready Meals Unhealthy for Humans & Planet

According to a recent study by the University of Aberdeen Rowett Institute, ready meals are unhealthy and have a larger carbon footprint than home-cooked foods. They are also less nutrient-dense.

In order to compare animal-based meals to plant-based meals and determine the effects of different cooking techniques on greenhouse gas emissions, scientists evaluated the nutritional quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and cost of 54 chilled or frozen ready meals to identical home-cooked meals.

Ready meals are unhealthy food options and contribute to lot of lifestyle diseases. When compared to identical home-cooked meals, ready meals had free sugar levels that were substantially higher on average.

Additionally, ready meals produced noticeably more greenhouse gas emissions than comparable home-cooked meals. Magaly Aceves Martins, a research fellow at the Rowett Institute, said, “Animal-based ready meals have a much higher carbon footprint than equivalent home-cooked meals.”

“Emissions are nearly 40% higher for animal-based ready meals than equivalent home-cooked meals. Plant-based ready meals and equivalent home-cooked meals had comparable greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Cooking ready meals or equivalent home-cooked meals add further emissions—we found oven cooking added up to 20% to greenhouse gas emissions, whereas stove and microwave cooking added only up to 4% or less than 1% to greenhouse gas emissions, respectively.”

Professor Baukje de Roos added, “Ready meals are very popular, due to lack of time for cooking, varying mealtimes, and sometimes a lack of cooking skills.”

“The ready meal market has a UK market value of over £3.9 billion. It’s estimated that 90% of the UK population eats ready meals, with two out of five eating them once a week. However, recipes for ready meals vary considerably, thus there is significant scope for the food industry to improve their nutritional quality and reduce their carbon footprint.

It’s time to change the way we look at the food market and plan our consumption wisely.

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