How TV Dinners Changed The Way America Cooked, Forever
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- Опубликовано: 28 май 2024
- Nothing quite conveys America's need for quick culinary convenience like a TV dinner - turkey and gravy with mashed potatoes and peas, all neatly portioned in an easy oven-ready tray. The TV dinner of the 1950s and 60s has changed a lot in the decades since. Today, frozen foods are now a booming category in supermarkets, a category that TV dinners helped to launch. Frozen foods were among the fastest-growing grocery category during the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing in $72.2 billion in retail sales in 2022, nearly a 34% increase compared to 2019.
Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction
01:07 - The TV dinner origin story
04:33 - The need for speed
06:41 - What’s next?
Produced by: Kate Sammer
Supervising Producer: Jeff Morganteen
Graphics by: Alex Wood
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How TV Dinners Changed The Way America Cooked, Forever
No TV dinners in my house when growing up, thanks, mom.
You had a good mother growing up...
@@StampitisDP She said, after I wanted Wonder bread and not her home baked, someday you will appreciate my school lunches that she made.
But, the few times we had TV dinners, it seemed like a PARTY. Usually, the times were when my parents were out of town @ a Volleyball Tournament.
Same, I’m forever grateful to my mom for taking the time to cook and teach me how to cook.
read the ingredients and you'll find a bunch of weird words. look at your mom's dinners and you'll find love!
Couldn’t imagine eating these for more then a fun treat on Friday.
Grew up with Indian parents and my mom cooked and still cooks every day. I am very thankful for meals with fresh seasonal ingredients.
India ? Do they have food in India ? I thought most people in India can’t even afford food and are mostly beggars
Congrats. If only people cared more about what you're thankful for
Your mom shouldn’t cook every day, you and other family members should also cook as she doesn’t have to cook everyday
If you already eat fresh food all the time, how is this a fun treat? It would seem like a downgrade
@@suronjitkumar3006 We don't know the circumstance of OP's family. It's possible that they're a traditional household. As long as it was a consensual arrangement, we shouldn't impose our values and expectations on them.
My dad lives on Hungry Man and Swanson dinners yet he swears he doesn’t eat any processed food 🤦♀️
Your father is a man of culture
I'm glad its not a big thing in Australia cost wise. A meal of bulked home cooked would be $3-4, Frozen meals would be 6-8 and take out would be 12-16. Frozen diners are right in between with a lot of downsides for all of the compromises. The only benefit is that it is just a bit cheaper than take out. For the price and size, its makes much more sense to just pay several dollars more to get way better tasting and larger servings of fresh food or bulk cook your meals and heat them up which is the same process anyway but with way better tasting, healthier and larger servings.
😂
Based dad
“How can frozen food be processed food” - POV from majority who consume it
For me, we usually had home cooked meals growing up, or takeout if no one felt up to cooking. Frozen dinners were a rare treat - the sort of thing that never really tasted good, but was kind of exciting for a kid who saw all the commercials and wanted that little brownie side.
They're disgusting 🤢 beginning of the processed food crisis in this country
Take out used to be good. It sucks ass now.
Be quiet silly little kid
Lies again? Polite Chef Dutch Indonesia
These are fake foods scientists, in fact they’re not real, yet
These things literally saved me when I was out in a college overseas and got my leg broken in the middle of winter. One of my classmates did the grocery shopping for me, consisting of tv dinners, yogurt, bakery items and bananas. He dropped these off at my apartment weekly and it was a huge reason I survived that stressful period. I only had a microwave in my apartment and survived comfortably. Ngl I miss those meals sometimes they actually taste pretty decent. We don't have so many varieties of frozen dinner here in southeast Asia.
I became obsessed with eating them in Singapore lmao, maybe you should pay a visit
you went back to asia from the usa ?
@@marvin2678he never said he was from the US you dimwit. The world doesn't revolve around the US.
What was your favorite frozen meal?
That's a good friend
I am surprised they didn't mention the high sodium in TV dinners.
Yeah it's the reason I stopped eating them 😂
Really been enjoying these mini documentary type videos lately
Same same. I feel more educated, informed and the videos aren’t too lengthy.
They got subtitles on every single video, allowing English learners to learn with ease.
this just feels like native advertising - cnbc loves blue apron. i think theyre a major shareholder
I'm Asian and my family rarely had these frozen tv dinners. Even though my mom is a working mom she made sure we had a good home cooked meal to eat every night. My parents grew up in a society where every morning you head out to the market to buy fresh food and ingredients to prep your dish for the evening, and that holds true today.
It's great but I wish this wasn't a woman/mother's job in a lot more societies. We all learn how to cook in school, and we are all capable of helping each other.
@@Satiney88 well Becky some women enjoy cooking everyday and is their way of contributing.
@@Dirkadew you are missing the point but whatever makes you happy i guess.
@@Satiney88 they teach you how to cook in school?
I’m Asian too but unfortunately my parents worked a lot when I was growing up so I had frozen dinners at least once a week, I’m in college now and still eat them because they’re cheaper than takeout and I can’t cook :(
As a stupid kid, I ate these things sometimes. As an adult, they're vomitous. A million milligrams of salt camouflaging the lowest quality grade F items legally allowed to be sold.
Well when the healthy options, and making meals from scratch start to cost significantly more each month, I'm starting to see myself try out some more and more microwave meals. Is it healthy by any means? No. But I'm 21, on a full-time low income, and also in trade school full-time, so I have minimal time & money to be spending on "quality" food. I know my body will regret it decades later, but this is how the system is set up. When all your waking hours are spent working & learning, studying & sleeping, it's extremely hard to find time to cook. When I do cook, its just usually a box of mac n cheese or a bowl of ramen or spaghetti lol, thats about all I can cook quickly, everything else will take a few hours of prep and so on. It's stupid, and I feel like a stupid kid lmao. Somebody teach me time management LMAO.
Dawg, at this point, I'm not even going to college 💀
@@nunyadambusiness3530 actually that’s not quite true. I understand where you are coming from but you can cook a great casserole, healthy and good price in 30 mins prep and 45 cooking time. Do two different ones and you will have cooked enough for two weeks of meals. Put the rice on 10 min before the casserole comes out the oven and your good to go. Divide the casserole into containers and freeze them, preferably in glass. When you come home grab one for dinner microwave it, put some rice on and 20min later your good to go and healthy. You can prep and cook a meal in 15 mins as well even a healthy omelette and cheap. There’s a saying your genes load the gun and your lifestyle pulls the trigger.
Idk man, in a pinch hungry man has saved the day and their nuggets are chicken breast and not half bad lol
@@nunyadambusiness3530 Much cheaper and way more healthier to do meal prep, especially if your taste are satisfied by mac and cheese or ramen/pasta. It all just takes a bit of practice and trial and error. Just expand out to pre-made sauces and add more fresh meat and veg to make it last 3-4 days easy. Experiment with some simple herbs/seasonings after that and see how you go. I just made a stir fried meal of 1kg of mince ($12 AUD), 1kg of long beans (About $8 AUD from a local grocer) and 7 eggs (About $3 AUD), thats 10 meals for $2.3 AUD each. Cook the mince through with whatever sauce, set aside. Stir fry the long beans with your choice of seasoning until almost tender and add the eggs in to fry up. Quick and easy, very hard to overcook. Serve with rice and supplement with fruits. This lasts us about 3 days, we bring it to work so we don't need to eat expensive take out, we eat it in front of the TV after a tiring day at work and with the dogs. It saves us enough money that we don't need to do this everyday. We have some cheat days where we dine out and limited ourself to one processed meal a week (something we cannot make ourselves like frozen pie or niche instant ramen that we supplement with an easy to cook fresh veg/protein on the side).
This video started auto playing while I was taking my frozen chicken alfredo out of the microwave 💀
My roommate in college used to have 20 of these stacked up in the freezer at all times. I gag thinking about how he survived on those for years 😂
The growth of frozen meals was definitely impacted as more women (who typically prepared the meals) were moving into the workforce. Nowadays while frozen meals are still prevalent there is definitely a trend with younger people returning to cooking after learning about the ingredients often used in hyper-processed foods. I myself enjoy cooking (mostly from scratch) and the only frozen meal I enjoy from time to time is a pizza. Cost wise you are definitely spending more on anything that's already prepared for you.
True I recently started learning baking and cooking 3 years ago I learned so much about preparation and other skills and the bad effects of frozen food I only consume frozen food like chicken nuggets.
for me it's not because of hyper processed food. that plays a factor but for me it's much simpler. real food tastes WAY better than processed food nowadays.
In the 70's, my teenage years, tv dinners meant no dishes to do, a cool desert, and of course, Mom and Dad stressed out less! 😎👍
This is interesting - my family consumes both original meals cooked from raw ingredients (both my grandparents love cooking and are well-versed with cuisine from Sichuan, China where we are from) as well as using frozen foods, such as supermarket dumplings that are "pre-wrapped" and can be cooked and steamed at home. Original meals include our main courses, meat dishes, and vegetable dishes, while as mentioned frozen foods usually are dumplings or other foods that would otherwise need a lot of hands-on preparation, which obviously uses convenience. My grandfather used to wrap his own dumplings every weekend until I was around 10, but it was time-consuming and a bit tiring so we stopped around then.
If I were to guess, I would say most American families probably do a similar mix of home-cooked meals and select frozen items that justify their convenience and time saved, as opposed to all original home-cooking or all frozen dinners (oh god, the thought of that lol). And I would argue that the frozen foods my family uses don't count as "TV dinners" because it is a single dish (then supplemented with our original home-cooking), rather than a pre-portioned cross-section of foods that can be microwaved together for an entire dinner.
From what have seen here in China, there are American TV dinners and similar things. However the cost of these frozen instant dinners is much higher than ordinary food.
I love this video and these types of videos. They're so fascinating
I have noticed that food I cook myself never gives me satisfaction and full pleasure when I eat it. I always find food cooked by somebody else to be generally more tasty and desirable even if its ingredients are inferior to the ones used by me. It is a strange paradox but I cannot do anything about it.
u aint the only one Freddy
@@aviralgoel29 thank you
Skill issue
I’m the opposite. I feel like I enjoy my own food so much more than eating out.
This used to be me, then I learnt to cook
As a bengali im grateful for the fresh dinners i had growing up.
Kid Cuisine was a big part of my childhood lol
I always wanted to try them out. When I did. I was so disappointed.
@@sandrohernandez4401 they were not that great. I’d much prefer my mom to cook…
Having Blue Apron talk about food innovation is like asking a Hindenburg engineer talk about aircraft safety.
yep, just an ad for them
I grew up on tv dinners as my family was poor and I didn't realize it wasn't "normal" until some friends made fun of me for it and I got embarrassed that we ate them literally every day. Hey, some taste good and are filling though. It's way better than nothing!!!
Where I come from, a developing country, poor people don't get enough nutrition. So, it's way better than that.
Sad story, but I hope you have home-cooked meals now or soon 👍🏻
I don't understand, how are tv dinners cheaper than cooking yourself??
@@joy-ow4ey 1. They probably have multiple jobs.
2. In a developed economy, shelf life matters more than cost of production.
@@joy-ow4ey banquet meals, for example, are $1 per meal.
One of the reasons why poor are poor. Isnt just basic raw material food cheaper than that garbage? :D Im a big guy, need a lot of nutrients. My house is full of 200kg of raw meat, legumes, cereals, potatoes, seeds and nuts and oils. All bought in larger quantity for very nice price. Im just going to farmer market for vegetable, fruit and cheese, to baker, bee keeper and to butcher for some nice ham, salami, sousages and pate. We have there oft discounts on pasterized milk, so every month i buy 46 litres for 20 bucks. Have a big garden with just lawn? Why? You can plant fruit and vegetable and keep few hens there. Your culture is about processed food, in my culture everyone know how to cook. Pizza for 10 bucks? Its so easy to do better pizza at home. For 10 bucks i rather go on 7 good big Czech beers to pub.
Some of these frozen meals got me by when I was struggling
I rather have these than cheap 711 food
TV dinners were never a big part of my life. We had a few of course. But it was maybe less than 10 times in my life and all when I was under the age of 10. I really don't know many people who do it. However of course people are buying them at stores so some folks still do it.
Frozen foods don't really bother me. It's just the microwave dinners that are weird.
It's really sad how most of us really don't know how top cook well, can afford good ingredients, and don't have the time to cook. That lady is right. No time for such things for most of us.
Most recent thanksgiving holidays I buy my Hungryman Turkey Dinner and stick it in the Freezer a week before. Hits the spot with a lot of butter and pepper. And I am truly grateful that day.
You know, as much as I love a nice home cooked meal and I'm glad that I don't eat nothing but frozen foods; I also think it's amazing that we live in a time where you can still have something resembling a decent meal even if you don't want to cook or spend any effort.
how can you be glad of eating industrial waste?
I used to love TV dinners from Hungry Man as a kid 😆
So blessed to have organic home cooked meals when growing up. My mom was against all these processed food. Thank you mom
Wait until you find out all food is "processed"
@@Sammysapphira However not ultra prosessed like modern non whole foods
@@Sammysapphira There is a difference between really processed "meat" and normal meat which is raw, sure depending on the quality animals could've been given low quality nutrition and tons of drugs but it's still better than ultra processed food
Loved when Swanson had the cranberry apple cobbler with the turkey dinner.
Let’s talk about how nasty those Kid Cuisine ones were yet we bugged our parents for them when the commercials came on lol
Those 2000’s commercials made me feel like i am missing out on life
I was raised on TV dinners and now I prefer to stay away from them. I rather cook my protein, mash potatoes, and veggies without the extra preservatives, salt, and sugar. Plus, cooking from home tastes better.
Exactly, send all that stuff to starving people in Africa. They much appreciate it. Maybe make a stew or something
I worked at a skilled nursing facility. These tv dinners are widely used by older folks for easy to make meals
I don't think I ever had TV dinner growing up but I heard that the flavors are bland despite the high sodium content. When I did eat junk food like Cup Noodles (I thought they're tasty) my mom always warned me about the high sodium content so I eventually stopped. I like making soup so cutting off Cup Noodles wasn't too bad (might be better for my health to avoid all that salt). I'm grateful I grew up with my mom and step dad who both cooked delicious meals, although I did feel like there's too much food sometimes and I don't like having any food wasted. The cooked food leftovers would be saved in plastic containers so I can eat it the next day or next few days, I just warm it up in a microwave and eat it. I'm thinking if I ever live by myself, I'll cook the meals in the weekend and the leftovers will be eaten at work during the week (if a microwave is available at work). That way I can cook and save money. If I work remotely then I have more time to cook home meals that's fresh.
You must be a kid. 😂
I like your thinking though. Always aim high. ☝🏾🙏🏾
Frozen meals are often heavily processed with extra salt and fat to make foods last longer.
In addition, stabilizing the product for a long period typically means that companies will use partially hydrogenated vegetable oils for some items (typically dessert).
Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are high in trans fats and are shown to adversely affect cardiovascular health.
The dinners are almost always significantly less nutritious than fresh food and are formulated to remain edible after long periods of storage, thus often requiring preservatives such as butylated hydroxytoluene.
There is, however, some variability between brands.
In recent years, there has been a push by a number of independent manufacturers and retailers to make meals that are low in salt and fat and free of artificial additives.
In the UK, most British supermarkets also produce their own "healthy eating" brands.
Nearly all chilled or frozen ready meals sold in the UK are now clearly labeled with the salt, sugar and fat content and the recommended daily intake.
Concern about obesity and government publicity initiatives (such as those by the Food Standards Agency and the National Health Service) have encouraged manufacturers to reduce the levels of salt and fat in ready prepared food.
UK has a good selection of much better fresh "ready" meals from most supermarkets as well. They're often just marinated meat in sauce and won't have a long date on them, they also aren't cooked beforehand. Usually much lower in salt, fat, sugar etc. I used to have these a fair amount as a sort of middle ground because I'm lazy.
I rarely see these kinds of meals available elsewhere in the world, only frozen ready stuff which I avoid.
Reducing the level of salt and fat is next to nothing given how highly processed and (chemical) additive-ridden those meals still are.
@@robertskolimowski7049 the ones in the UK usually aren't too bad in that respect, especially if you go for the higher quality ones. I actually prefer they add more salt and fat than those things, at least you know what you're getting with salt and fat, we've been eating them for centuries and our bodies know what to do with them (within limits) but no one really knows the long term effects these chemicals are having
Ever since watching stuff around "ultra processed foods" I've really changed my diet, buying so much more raw ingredients and because I'm lazy eating simpler meals that I make myself and at least know what's in them.
I still have other stuff from time to time that has those chemicals, but hoping a big reduction in consumption of them will do me a favour in 30+ years.
Ironically also noticed I've been naturally losing body weight slowly over time, I had a bit of a beer belly but almost nothing now, despite probably consuming more sugar and fat.
And now we just have gross healthy food that's bland
My mother loved cooking, but we might have a TV dinner if she'd had a busy day. I don't remember ever having take out growing up. Mom would sometimes heat chicken pot pies as she got older, but tv dinners were rare.
Instead of eating commercially available frozen meals, I would do a version of meal preps that I saw people do on social media. Bulk buy the ingredients and batch cook three or four dishes, put them in serving containers and freeze them. Rinse and repeat except with different ingredients/dishes to create some variety. These meals will last several months in the freezer and the cost per meal will be surprisingly low.
I always think of the Golden Girls when I see TV Dinners. Sophia calls television 'just a fad' and Dorothy replies "If Swanson thought television was just a fad, he would have named those Radio Dinners."
This was really interesting. Thank you CNBC.
We didn't have them very often, but it was fun when we did. I liked them better when they came in a metal tray for the oven.
Me too. Not very often at all, maybe a few times a year, but when we had it as a kid it was fun. Exciting, almost.
Funny to see how the comments are so aggressively against it.. sure, living off of it is unhealthy, but it can be a good thing to have in your freezer as a snack or when you're really too busy to cook a meal.
I honestly just eat them because they are cheap and don't take long to make. Usually for a quick lunch. I make my dinners 9/10 if the time
I remember during the first year after moving to the US on Sunday me and my mom would have these TV dinner for dinner. We like pick up like 3 interesting ones to try. Would like never eat them now but good memories XD
Great video as always
You can make your own frozen meals when you have time in bulk and even store them in individually wrapped serving size. Just do your research on what freezes well. Just pop it in the microwave or even the oven. Best of both worlds.
I do that when I'm making certain things. I live on my own, so it's often difficult to get ingredients for just one serving. And also making a large pot takes not much longer than just a small pot, so I make a large one and freeze the rest. For instance with spaghetti sauce. Make it once and the next 7-8 times you don't have to make it again and it goes a lot quicker (cook the spaghetti and microwave a serving of sauce taken out of the freezer).
The biggest challenge of changing from oven to microwave is oven-dinners were sold in metal containers, but put a metal container in the microwave = armageddon. The technology of "cook-in" containers is probably a whole other episode 🤣
Inflation sent prices up on these meals over 9 dollars for 1 meal..
Good. Half a TV meal is enough empty calories. Doubling the price of processed food would singlehandedly be the best thing to happen to American life expectancy.
@@Lybrel low calories. High sodium.
I remember TV dinners from the 1960's ... Swanson's Beef and potatoes. Tasted like beef, like McDonalds tastes like a hamburger; not exactly right but fun.
Quality convenience variety. And not a single word about nutrition. I am most grateful that I eat none of that garbage.
Living in sub continent, we have a Microwave and my mother only uses it just to heat the rice she cooks. Frozen food here is considered highly unhealthy.
As a latchkey kid, tv dinners were breakfast, lunch, AND dinner 😂
Nothing funny about this
Were you fat as a kid?
American food seems to be even worse than I thought.
Not all Americans eat the processed foods
Healthy food is expensive to buy these days.
It really is. Preservatives and pre cooked food is so prevalent.
only the third world countries eat fresh and naturally grown food.
Most of these meals are expensive too. Just buy a bag of frozen veggies and mix it with some rice and sauce. Costs the same as one tv dinner stirfry but you get several servings.
That Fried Chicken TV Dinner be bussing💯, Ebonics for “damn good.” I tried others, but don’t like them👍🏿.
It's late you're still in the office, you have a dead-line, you haven't eaten. Luckily for you the break room has a microwave and you remembered your Banquet Mega Bowl Country Fried Steak - which by the way is my favorite.
"I rather have it and not need it , then need it and....starve."
I think TV dinners tasted better in an aluminum tray than a plastic one.
TV dinners are fine for once a week but can’t imagine having it everyday😅
I'm very bullish on frozen food. The healthy brands of frozen meals are among the easiest, healthiest, and cheapest ways to eat healthy. Frozen food doesn't need chemical preservatives, and is often flash-frozen soon after harvest. It *can* be healthier and cheaper to cook for yourself, but most people don't know how to make healthy food, and they waste a lot of the ingredients they buy. Frozen meals produce no food waste. I don't do this currently, but for years I lived on just healthy frozen meals, healthy cereals like plain shredded wheat, and some fresh/frozen fruits/veggies.
The leaders in healthy frozen food seem to be Conagra and Nestle. I've been particularly impressed by Conagra's innovation in this space, such as their larger-sized Birdseye Voila bags and their Healthy Choice meals in compostable paper bowls.
If you want to be impressed by a frozen meal try some of Trader Joe’s.
Lots of Frozen vegetables aren't that bad either. Better than stuff in the can. Fresh produce can be hard to manage at times.
i ate this sometimes for lunch at the office. especially when i had to visit the remote office where lunch options are pretty limited.
Interesting topic and well done. The excuse the lady gave for 5 minutes meals is that people were busier than ever...be real it was for profit, banking on the fact that if people had the easy option most would go with it.
We as people are inherently lazy, nothing to do with being so busy that out of the whole day you only have 5 minutes for dinner on a regular basis. I'm not talking about any potential exceptions because they are exceptions and not the rule. Remember this started before both parents had to work to provide basics, and when vacuums, dishwashers, washing machines became common and freed up time and energy. When dads spent time in bars or at games when not working and when helping with any chores was considered odd.
Back then kind of like today people spent time watching movies, shows, reading magazines, and moms having regular gossip sessions etc. Today is worse for sure with social media, drive ins, and even less activity but you just explained how it all started. It's sometimes unfortunate how easily one corporation can set a trend for a whole society, but we as people play a part in it. It's not irreversible for an individual though, we can get better informed and start living better day by day.
Crazy to say that men spent money at the bars and on games instead of being at home are you kidding ?! My dad was a minister, His siblings were postal workers , farmers, NO ONE AT THE BAR!
@@KC-dr3cg lol dude nobody is talking about your family, why do you take this personal? OP made a general statement to express how men in the past did not spend time doing domestic work
TV dinners became such a threat that home appliance makers had to evolve. That's why we got microwaves, smaller kitchen top ovens, air fryers, the Instant Pot and even small induction cooktops.
Sad thing is, that didn’t stop anything, just made the TV dinner people get smarter…
@@kingrobotnik6950 I think the rise of RUclips, especially once widescreen playback and videos longer than 10 minutes became viable, has driven a renewed interest in homemade food. Especially with all the home appliances I mentioned.
The marie calendars chiken Alfredo is good .👍
They're a huge deal for younger people with no family around (i.e. college students, military personnel, young professionals). Beats ordering fast food, especially at the ludicrous prices the food delivery apps charge.
If you're ordering and collecting fast food then not so much, because it's cheaper than delivery and at least you're getting a bit of exercise. I used to get takeaway a lot as a student, but usually involved some walking
Sodium levels are very, very high.
SKY HIGH ☁️
That's actually one of the least problematic things about them.
This is where Tucker Carlson's wealth came from. Trust fund baby with the Swanson TV dinner family. Real man of the people that he pretends to be, I doubt he ever ate one during his conservative and very wealthy upbringing.
Dude is a bum
Tied it once...
Never again
Eating out or cooking yourself is better.
Italian say once: your place is trash can not my stomach
I love me some tv dinners. 😋
We have frozen meals in Australia but those TV dinners are on another level 😲
Tv dinner is still fine for food alone, but people no longer gather around tv for dinner any more.
I love tv dinners!
Does anyone know the Jazz composition's name at the end of the video?
If it wasn’t for the microwave I would starve to death. Stouffers have the best frozen food
Who else has ZZ Top "TV Dinners" runningin their head? "I even like the enchiladas and the teriyaki too...I even like the chicken is sauce isn't too blue"🤣🤣
Today, TV dinners are small portioned and are loaded with salt. I don't normally eat those, but only on rare occasions. I see people buy a lot, maybe because of the convenience or they can't or don't want to cook.
Even when cooking at home Americans reach for canned & packaged ingredients rather than fresh. This country is the most backwards when comes to food. Somehow the population is blind to this fact.
ONLY DO the trial version of meal kits. NO ONE should pay $120 a WEEK on meal kits that YOU STILL HAVE TO PREPARE!!!! They add the service cost as if they are the store, grower, shopper, AND a company. WAYYYYY overpriced
sous vide also opened up doors for better quality quick meals.
Here its really popular with refrigerated meals that have been prepared in sous vide that you just toss in the microwave for a couple of minutes. By no means a grand full meal, but good for those in a hurry or dont need much more.
Three weeks ago somebody cooked a casserole from Virginia. Priceless.
Its better to have frozen food than hungry and cold.
I'm far from what science might consider a 'typical' American consumer. But I do love me a frozen Salisbury steak TV dinner, once, every 5 years.
Thank you to my parents for not raising me on these highly processed pre cooked frozen tv dinners. I had home cooked meals, and learned to cook.
SUPER AMAZING
I'm grateful to my mother for providing me with a hot home cooked meal with fresh ingredients. I doubt it can be done in this day and age. I did try those TV dinners twice maybe. It was good but I wouldn't want it every single day thrice a day
yes, i grew up in the OLD SCHOOL. Mom cooked dinner 7 days a week and sometimes it was good and sometimes it was not so good but i can barely remember tv dinners as a child. maybe that odd time every once in a while. later in college i got them because they were quick easy and convenient. later on realized that they were bland processed and tasteless food.
The problem with all tv dinners is that the portions are way to small and they don't fill you up and they cost too much.
Watching this on my phone while eating breakfast 😅
I didn't see any warning for a specialist about the damages that this type of ultraprocessed food can have. I know that is a video about the history of TV Dinners, but I just saw interviews with these companies employees from this food sector.
I love tv dinners! 😃
Fun Fact: Tucker Carlson is the heir to the Swanson frozen food empire
Wow, no mention of plastic waste.
I thank the innuit and the farmers to all the science that went into this, that we arent starving and always have more than one option to eat
I can’t believe people actually like these things
Italian here........ .ate the potpies once in awhile....
i love tv dinners
I had these a lot. Thought they were fine. Except for value. They were quite expensive for the portion size.
I’ve got nothing against anyone who does, but not one person I know buys & eats frozen dinners. I can’t think of a time when I’ve seen one in anybody’s freezer or on their table/lap. I’ve eaten one perhaps once in my life. On the other hand I know plenty of people who order food boxes/bags each week with meal ingredients ready to prepare.
I'd say they're definitely out of fashion these days, in the UK those lazy people just get fast food deliveries despite the cost (and unironically wonder why they have no money) but also here we do have a good range of fresh semi-ready meals, that are the raw ingredients in one container, cooked in the oven for 30-40 minutes or so. These are usually pretty good, especially if it's something that would be time consuming to make and have way less salt, fat, sugar, preservatives etc than a frozen equivalent. They don't have a very long shelf life either
Mom never fed me that trash. Thank you Mommy.
@5:16 say what 😂
Tv dinners are so ingrained in American culture that there's songs about them.
The Day of Quarantine, I saw so many people with stacks of frozen food. I bought a pig butt. My pig butt would last longer than the trays.
Wow. My parents never had a microwave, but always cooked whole foods stovetop or in an oven. We never ate out to save money, and rarely had fast food. My mom always cooked our meals with seasonal vegetables. I was always jealous of all the kids who got to eat junk food. I used to hate the food my mom fed me to be honest.
Now I’m in my 40s with the same eating habits and have a healthy slim figure. I thank my parents for shaping my diet and setting me up with a healthy lifestyle. My parents are still very healthy in their older years as well.
The TV dinner changed how people in north-america ate with a fork and knife to today simply just using a fork only !
“Sacrifice taste and texture for presentation” well that’s just sad
my mother cooked most nights when I was growing up unless her and dad were going out I.E. to someone's wedding or something. in that instance we'd either have a frozen dinner or a takeout pizza when I was a kid we lived on Chelsea street in East Boston and across the street from Santarpio's pizza's original location originally founded as a Bakery in 1903 closed and refounded as a Pizzaria in 1933
Grew up on only home cooked meals, my wife cooks every single day for me and my kids, packs lunch for all of us. We try to keep the old tradition alive, eating dinner together, where 30 and it seems like the tradition is dead.
Your wife cooks daily!?!? How dare you oppress her sir!!!
@@MrHav1k Some women (and men) like cooking enough to do it every day
@@kamcorder3585 - "Some" is the operative word. Very few women actually enjoy cooking every single day. It's a chore, plain and simple. Doing so requires other chores by extension: grocery shopping, food cleaning/sanitizing, fridge & pantry organization, recipe curating, meal planning, meal prepping, cooking, dishwashing, dish storage, leftover storage, food maintenance & disposal, fridge cleaning, etc. It's no wonder that meal delivery services are on the rise, they do 80% of the work for you. I don't mind cooking for myself, I love to cook. But having to cook & plan for an entire family is exhausting. Doing it on repeat every single day? No thank you. Men & children get to relax & benefit from the exercise, but they have no clue how much we do it out of obligation & necessity, rather than joy.
@@MrHav1k SIR??? How dare you assume my gender 🤣 🤣 BTW she loves it, she hates fast food.
@@YourMajesty143 guess what, men are the movers and shakers of the world. If you knew how much the men(and I mean powerful men) have to go through to keep things turning. It doesn’t hurt to come home to a decent meal. In an age where tech is abound, recipes are at the push of a button, the only thing holding the modern woman back is her laziness. The ancient women would both be amused and ashamed at the state of modern women. Struggling to cook a simple little meal for her family…
Yea so glad I have a Mexican mother.
That 💩 don’t fly in a Mexican house, my nana thinks microwave food is poisonous too 😂😂😂
I remember my cousin mentioning he made quesadillas in the microwave at college once and my nana bought him a comal(like a crepe pan) and a hot plate😂
I’d put a abualita up against any other grandma in the kitchen.
When you start out with crap, that's all you can hope for. Starchy and fat.
Microwaving food is no different than sun-drying chili peppers on a record-breaking hot day. Both rely on heat radiation. In fact, the microwave is actually safer to humans than the sun.
@@YourMajesty143 um absolutely false...
Microwaving cooks from the inside out heating water molecules.
The sun is radiant heat...
Damn kid didn’t u ever pay attention in school?
@@carlosmontclair3808 - Not you tryna gaslight me. Please read up on electromagnetic radiation, as both microwaves and the sun emit - albeit at different wavelengths. My point is that in terms of safety, radiation from this appliance is no more dangerous than the radiation from the sun. If we're willing to allow our food and ourselves to be exposed to solar radiation (which has 4 types of radiation), then all this fear-mongering around microwaves, cell towers, and computers is ridiculous.
@@YourMajesty143 see the funny thing is, here I was commenting on my nana, and what she believes.
You (in all your self entitled glory) insisted on correcting a thought which you erroneously assumed was my own...
Then go on the incorrectly attempt at critiqueing me only to be corrected yourself.
Then in defense of your obviously lacking intelligence you proceed to attempt using more complex speech patterns to attempt defending your stance that... the sun and microwaves are essentially the same....
I mean if you wanna break it down technically then most energy including radiation ☢️ is releasing a form of energy which is harmful(depending on the severity), so I don’t get what your trying to do other than try to one up people to make ur inadequacy lessen... if for only a moment.
😢
So sad
🤙 loser