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Research Christmas 2012: Research

Nutritional content of supermarket ready meals and recipes by television chefs in the United Kingdom: cross sectional study

BMJ 2012; 345 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e7607 (Published 17 December 2012) Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e7607

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Re: Nutritional content of supermarket ready meals and recipes by television chefs in the United Kingdom: cross sectional study

Howard and colleagues conclude from their analysis of supermarket ready meals and recipes by TV chefs that ‘consideration should be given to regulation of (the nutritional content of) recipes demonstrated by TV chefs’. We think this would be a shame.
Supermarket ready meals are designed for convenience within tight cost constraints while TV chef recipes are designed to entertain and impress, with fewer limits on the cost of ingredients and hence serving size. It is unclear whether the portion sizes were comparable between the ready meals and the TV chef’s recipes, or ether the use of the lowest rather than median number of servings introduced any bias. In judging nutritional content the quantity as well as the quality is important.
As the authors note, nutritional quality should be judged in a whole diet. The balance of the whole meal therefore needs to be considered, for example whether it is recommended that a main dish is consumed with starchy carbohydrates and/or vegetable side dishes, which we suspect is more likely with home-cooked meals. TV chefs could take care to promote this practice and to check that the serving size suggested is modest. Beyond this we would not want to curtail their flair for combining and presenting ingredients in ways that clearly inspire many.

Competing interests: No competing interests

22 December 2012
Geraldine McNeill
Professor of Public Health
Jennie Macdiarmid
University of Aberdeen
Foresterhill, Aberdeen AB25 2ZD