Eat: The convenience of ready to use/ready to eat food

Today, I am going to write about ready to use stuff. Whether it is about using such stuff to cook food quickly in your kitchen, getting your hands on preserved ingredients when fresh stuff is inaccessible, or getting your hands on prepared stuff that can be added to your pan so as to save time - or, whether it is about ready to heat and eat food - the truth is that these foods and ingredients are here to stay, whether they are healthy or not, and whether you like them or not.

So, just browse the website of any grocery store online, and what do you find? Over 60% of the products belong to one of these categories. Let me go down the list one by one.

A. Stuff used in the kitchen to prepare or decorate food:

1. Using items that help you to cook faster: This list includes cut and diced items like vegetables, meats etc. They are mostly in the frozen foods section. Who among us has not purchased these from time to time? So, be it mixed cut vegetables, diced and quartered pieces of boneless meat, shelled and deveined prawns, garden peas, cut and diced okra - these are the most frequently shopped for items. To be fair, there is no harm in purchasing them if they have been fast frozen at the place they were cleaned and diced. I am not sure, though, that this actually happens. The index of freshness of food is nowadays indicated by food miles: how far or how long did the food travel or stay without preservation. Obviously, items that are frozen at the place of produce are the best, such as frozen berries or cold-pressed oils. Modern belief is that frozen foods that were frozen rapidly after being cleaned or processed or harvested are nutritionally as good, or sometimes, even better than fresh food that has stayed on the shelf for a long time.

 This category also includes ready-made mixes that help you conjure exo

tic dishes in a jiffy. I am, of course, referring to items like "Chicken Balti mix", "Lazeez Haleem mix", "Beef ragu mix" and so on. It also includes frequently bought items like sambar powder, idli mix, medu vada mix, rabri mix and so on. The list is endless. You just need to follow the instructions on the box, and voila! your exotic food is ready.

2.Using items that are otherwise inaccessible or not easily available: In this category are items that mostly are difficult to procure. It may be a situation such as mine. I am based in Blackpool, and this place generally does not have Indian food stores. I am therefore unable to quickly find condiments and spices that I need. This applies also to Asian vegetables such as cluster beans, small aubergines, tinda, etc. I found frozen cut vegetables of all these kinds in Preston! Curry leaves are another rare commodity in Blackpool Now, you can either go to Preston every few weeks to buy fresh curry leaves, or, as I do, buy dried curry leaves available in a bottle. These stay unspoiled for months! You can find almost any leaf in dried form in a supermarket - whether Indian, or European. Ever bought coriander that is dry and available in a bottle? Do try it.

3.Using items that are available fresh, but you still buy them frozen for convenience: This is a somewhat gray area, but modern consumers often do this because they feel it is an easier way. This prevents the need to visit the grocer every day. Some people will buy fresh, then store it in the freezer having zip-loc'd it/ Still others will save the additional bother and simply store frozen food purchased from the counter. It all depends on your budget. I would prefer to buy fresh and store what I don't need immediately, but refer to the paragraph above on possible benefits of freshly frozen food (an anachronism, but there ... you have it!)

B. Ready to Heat and Eat Foods:

These are the fastest growing segment of foods. Available in the past as microwave dinners, they have now taken on a completely different complexion. All you need to do is to heat and eat them. You can find them on supermarket shelves all over the world. They cater to every palate, every culture and every taste. You can now eat Japanese, Thai, Korean, Indian, Indonesian, or even Chilean food bought off the shelf of Marks and Spencer in the UK, or Big Bazaar in India. These foods invariably have preservatives, additives, colourants and other agents to keep them without spoiling even without refrigeration. It is the multi-layered packaging that is the secret to these foods staying fresh until the use-by date. I am not referring to freshly packed cooked foods, but sealed foods that can be kept without cooling.

C.Cooking and storing food in the freezer for later consumption:

During my discussions with friends offline and online about this post, I was reminded of this third category. I am sure we all do this with leftovers. Well, not all of us, but quite a few of us. We do this because we don't want to throw away our labour of love. We also do not want to eat the same food again and again. So, we put aside some of that food into the refrigerator - either in the lower, normal fridge section (to be consumed in the next few days), or, as is postulated here, into the freezer section to be eaten after a much longer period of time. Now, mind you, some foods preserve well, while others become soggy and inedible - such as rice. 

So, dear reader, tell me, have you used some of the above kinds of foods or not? What is your opinion? Do share in the comments section. Thank you for reading this post.

P.S. All images are copyrighted to their respective brands.