Ready meals in the UK
Ready meals (or microwave meals) are found all over the UK in every supermarket. Their convenience has made them a staple in many homes for the times when you don’t have the time or energy to cook, and they can also work out pretty cost effective too if you buy the right ones!
BUT if you’re a parent looking for a ready-meal equivalent for kids…well you may be disappointed by what you'll find...
Why normal ready meals aren’t suitable for kids under 5
Ready meals are well known for their convenience, but they are also well known for their high salt level compared to a home cooked version of the same meal!
Take this beef lasagne from Tesco. It’s almost 40% of your daily salt intake in one meal!
And according to the NHS healthy eating guidelines, children under 5 should have no added salt in their diet at all. Essentially the natural salt found in ingredients like bread, cheese and vegetables is enough for them as their kidneys aren’t as developed as an adult’s.
So the bottom line is kids under 5 shouldn’t be given ready meals designed for adults
Batch cooking as a kids ready meal alternative
If you’ve tried batch-cooking, you’ll probably already know that it takes a lot of prep work, planning ahead and it basically means that you’ll be eating the same thing out of the freezer for the next week. This might be fine for a student or a young professional but babies are a whole different story!
Variety is one of the most important things during the first 6-12 months of your baby’s life. The period provides a golden opportunity to expose your baby to the widest range of flavours possible before potential fussiness sets in at 18+ months. Trying to do this with batch cooking is, of course, going to be tricky.
Kids ready meal delivery services in London
If you’ve never heard of services like these, well, they deliver meals for your baby or toddler!
But, there are some important distinctions to make between the different services available.
First you’ve got old-school pouches and jars which most people buy in the supermarket. Then there are the frozen baby meals which usually let you “build a box” of your favourite meals and they arrive frozen ready to be on standby in the freezer.
Lastly, there are actual fresh kids meal companies like V&Me who deliver freshly ready meals to your doorstep, straight from their kitchen in Battersea.
Fresh ready meals for kids
The idea that you can get freshly made kids meals is fairly new to London, but it’s actually a concept that’s been around for years in Bulgaria.
“Baby kitchens” as they call them, are dedicated facilities dotted around every major city in the country which make food specifically for babies and toddlers.
That means no salt, no sugar, no preservatives…just fresh ingredients cooked on the day ready to be delivered to doorsteps around the city.
London’s first kitchen dedicated to making fresh, nutritious ready meals for kids
V&Me’s mission is to offer London parents a truly guilt-free alternative to home-cooking for their kids.
And since its started in 2020, a growing number of parents in London have made the switch to getting convenient deliveries to their doorstep from V&Me’s baby kitchen.
All the ready meals are cooked from scratch on site, using real ingredients and with no added salt, sugar or preservatives. Each morning the team of professional chefs arrive bright and early to start preparing a different three meals according to the changing daily menus. This ensures that babies and toddlers are getting the variety and freshness that their growing brains and bodies need, even when their parents are short on time.
How to sign up?
If you live in London and you want to join the growing number of parents getting fresh baby meal deliveries to their doorstep, click the link below and get your first delivery now!
We are now delivering to almost all central London postcodes, including popular areas like Earlsfield, Clapham, Nappy Valley, South Kensington, Hammersmith, Streatham, Queen’s park, Hackney, Lewisham and many more!
