Although quickly warming up a ready meal can be a life saver in our daily rush, it is worth to turn the packaging over, and take a quick look at what the packet really contains.
The image of the food on the packaging usually has nothing to do with the actual instant soup or ready meal. A powdered mushroom soup for example contains only about one piece of champignon mushroom, and the rest of it contains modified starch, flour, fats and oils, and further additives and flavourings. This is not only disappointing but also very unhealthy. Most of these powdered foods contain Monosodium glutamate (MSG), a flavouring additive which is used as a flavour enhancer so that we can taste those flavours more intensely which we normally could not taste at all. This additive is very controversial as several researches showed that it can cause headache, nausea and rapid heart rate for those who are sensitive to it. But it has another inconvenient side effect: it can switch off the sensation of satiety, which means that even we are full we are not feeling so, and we can easily eat more than necessary.
Let’s decide to cut down on unhealthy junk food, and try to plan our time so that we can have enough time to prepare proper, delicious home cooked soup. For example preparing a green pea soup, an egg soup, a vegetable soup or a mushroom cream soup takes only a half hour. Our health worth this.