Ready Meals: How to Choose a Better One in 30 Seconds

Ready meals get a bad press, and some of it is earned, but the realistic question is not "should I never eat one". It is "which one do I put in the basket". You can answer that in about half a minute at the shelf if you know the four things to look at. You are not giving up the convenience, you are picking the better version of it.

1. Read it per portion, not per 100g

The first trick the front of the pack plays is per-100g figures, which look reassuring right up until you notice the pack is 400g. Always check the per-portion column, and check what the manufacturer is calling a portion, because a meal that "serves two" is very often eaten by one. The colour-coded traffic lights help, but read them for the portion you will actually eat.

2. Salt is usually the worst offender

Ready meals are one of the larger salt sources in UK shopping, and a single meal can use up a big chunk of the 6g daily limit on its own. If you are weighing up two similar meals, salt is often the number that separates them. Lower is better, and a red traffic light for salt on a single meal is worth a second look before it goes in the trolley.

3. Then saturated fat

Creamy sauces, pastry lids, cheese toppings and fried elements push saturated fat up quickly. Tomato-based dishes and leaner protein meals tend to fare better than creamy or pastry-topped ones. As with salt, the per-portion saturated-fat figure and its colour tell you most of what you need to know at a glance.

4. Find the vegetables, and the protein

The quiet failing of a lot of ready meals is that they are carbohydrate and sauce with very little veg or protein, which is why they do not fill you up and you are back in the cupboard an hour later. A meal with visible vegetables and a proper protein source is usually both more satisfying and better scoring. If it is light on both, a handful of frozen veg cooked alongside it is the cheapest upgrade going.

The thing the label cannot tell you

Here is the limit of the traffic lights: they are the same for everyone. A meal that earns a green for salt for the average shopper might still be one to think twice about if you are managing your blood pressure, and a sugar level that is fine for most could matter more if you are watching your blood sugar. The front-of-pack label does not know who is holding it.

That is the gap MyFoodFit is built for. Scan the meal and it scores it against your profile, not the average shopper's, and where it falls short it points you to a better option in the same aisle, which you scan to check. It is the same red, amber and green idea you already trust from the front of packs, tuned to you rather than to everyone.

You do not need to swear off ready meals. Turn the pack over, read per portion, keep an eye on salt and saturated fat, and make sure there is some veg and protein in there. Thirty seconds at the shelf is the whole skill.