One of the things that irritates me whenever there is any kind of programme on TV about healthy eating is re-learning just how bad pre-packaged meals are. And even more, every time I get lectured to by some pompous food guru who tells me I just need to spend the time to cook my own food to eat healthily.
But I don’t want to use my spare time to cook. I don’t really enjoy it, and I’m often in need of food when I arrive back tired from doing something I prefer. Convenience food is ideal for me, except for the health aspect. I’m quite happy to eat healthily and do try, but convenience food is too convenient to give up.
So why is convenience food bad ? The traditional trend has been for manufacturers to add salt and sugar to cheap ingredients to make them taste ‘better’, and to reduce the price. I would be quite happy to spend a little bit more for a healthier product and I dare say many others would be too.
Rather than be told that we need to cook our food from scratch, it would be better if the TV pundits told us that but also tried to persuade the manufacturers to produce healthier convenience food … perhaps by highlighting products that are good. No matter how hard people campaign, many people will not switch from convenience foods, so improving convenience foods will probably have a greater effect on the health of the nation than just telling us we need to behave better and not be so lazy.