Which Ready-Meal Brand Is the Healthiest?

Ready-made meals make it easier to control your energy intake without having to plan and cook every night. The difficulty is working out which ones are actually better for you, because the packs all make similar promises and the numbers that matter are on the back in small print.

So we compared four brands of ready meals sold in Australia — ours, Youfoodz, Weight Watchers and Lite n' Easy — on the measures that decide whether a meal supports weight loss or quietly works against it.

We should say plainly that we are one of the four. This is our comparison of our own product against competitors, so read it as an argument we are making rather than as independent testing, and check the current panels yourself before you decide. We have published the figures we used so you can do exactly that.

What we compared, and how

We matched like with like as far as we could: chicken, fish and beef meals from each brand, compared per serve rather than per 100g, because the serve is what you actually eat.

We looked at five measures — kilojoules, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugar and sodium.

Two limits are worth stating before the numbers. Serve sizes differ between brands, so a larger meal will carry more of everything; and the figures below were collated on 3 June 2020, which means recipes may well have changed since. They are a snapshot, not a live feed.

Kilojoules per serve

Energy is the measure that does most of the work in weight loss. Our three meals came in lowest of the group.

One figure in our original table needs correcting rather than repeating: Weight Watchers Peri Peri Chicken was recorded as 11,580 kJ. That is roughly a day and a half of energy for most adults in a single ready meal, so it is a misplaced decimal point — the real figure is almost certainly 1,158 kJ. We have left it out of the comparison rather than quietly fixing someone else's number.

The honest caveat on this measure is the one we flagged above: Weight Watchers and Lite n' Easy serves were the largest in the group, and a bigger meal carrying more energy is not by itself a fault.

Saturated fat per serve

Saturated fat matters for heart health rather than for the scales, and it is where cream-based sauces show up.

Worth noting fairly: Weight Watchers' Peri Peri Chicken beat two of our three meals on this measure. We are not going to claim a clean sweep we did not get.

Sodium per serve

Sodium is the measure where ready meals most often disappoint, because salt is doing the flavour work that herbs and spices could do instead. It is also the measure with the widest spread in this comparison.

The gap between the lowest and highest meal here is roughly five and a half times. Our meals are built to under 120 mg of sodium per 100 g, which is what puts them at the bottom of this list.

Carbohydrates and sugar

Our meals sit at the low end on carbohydrate, which follows from how we build them: under 20 g per meal, with the bulk of the plate given to vegetables and lean protein rather than rice, pasta or potato.

We have not reproduced a brand-by-brand sugar table here. In the source data our carbohydrate and sugar columns cannot be cleanly separated, and publishing a split we cannot stand behind would be worse than publishing nothing. If sugar content is your deciding factor, read it off the current pack — it sits directly beneath carbohydrate on the panel.

How to read a nutrition panel yourself

This is the part that outlasts any comparison table, including ours.

What goes into our meals

Every meal we make is built to the same specification, which is why our figures cluster the way they do above:

We snap-freeze rather than shelf-stabilise, which is how the meals carry no preservatives. They reheat by microwave, oven, air fryer or stovetop.

The verdict, and what it is worth

On these meals, on these measures, on that date, ours were lowest in energy and sodium and among the lowest in saturated fat. That is the finding, and we think it is a fair one.

Here is what it is not. It is not independent testing — we ran it and we sell one of the products. It is not a whole-diet judgement, because a meal is one part of a day and what you eat around it matters more than which brand you picked. It is not current, because the data is from 2020 and recipes change. And it compares a handful of meals, not entire ranges; every brand here has products that would score better and worse than the ones we chose.

If you want to check any of it, every figure above is on the pack. That is the most useful thing we can tell you.

Important health information

Disclaimer: Nutritional comparison data was collated on 3 June 2020 from relevant websites. This information is only accurate on 3 June 2020 and will require review.

*Average 5.1kg lost by 212 our customers over 2 weeks on Be Rapid/Metabolism Reset. Individual results may vary and may be impacted by numerous factors including food plan type and individual circumstances and existing health/medical conditions or medications. We advise you to talk to your health professional prior to commencing and during your weight loss journey.

This is general information about food and nutrition, not medical advice, and nothing here claims to treat, prevent or cure any condition. Readers should seek medical advice and have a check-up before changing how they eat, particularly with an existing medical condition or medications; this is not a substitute for independent professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Weight loss results and rates of weight loss vary between individuals.

Questions and answers

What do we explain about Which Ready-Meal Brand Is the Healthiest?

On our Which Ready-Meal Brand Is the Healthiest page, we explain that ready-made meals make it easier to control your energy intake without having to plan and cook every night. The difficulty is working out which ones are actually better for you, because the packs all make similar promises and the numbers that matter are on the back in small print. So we compared four brands of ready meals sold in Australia — ours, Youfoodz, Weight Watchers and Lite n' Easy — on the measures that decide whether a meal supports weight loss or quietly works against it. We should say plainly that we are one of the four. This is our comparison of our own product.

What should I know about what we compared, and how on this page?

On our Which Ready-Meal Brand Is the Healthiest page, we explain that we matched like with like as far as we could: chicken, fish and beef meals from each brand, compared per serve rather than per 100g, because the serve is what you actually eat. We looked at five measures — kilojoules, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugar and sodium. Two limits are worth stating before the numbers. Serve sizes differ between brands, so a larger meal will carry more of everything; and the figures below were collated on 3 June 2020, which means recipes may well have changed since. They are a snapshot, not a live feed.

What should I know about kilojoules per serve on this page?

On our Which Ready-Meal Brand Is the Healthiest page, we explain that energy is the measure that does most of the work in weight loss. Our three meals came in lowest of the group. Our Italian Beef Meatballs — 777 kJ Our Chilli & Ginger Baked Fish — 928 kJ Our Wholemeal Beef Lasagne — 932 kJ Youfoodz Clean Fish with Creamy Garlic Sauce — 1,140 kJ Youfoodz Slow-Cooked BBQ Beef & Mash — 1,260 kJ Youfoodz Creamy Garlic Chicken Kiev and Chips — 1,440 kJ Lite n' Easy Flame Grilled Meatballs with Mushroom Gravy — 1,657.9 kJ One figure in our original table needs correcting rather than repeating: Weight Watchers Peri Peri Chicken was recorded as.

What should I know about saturated fat per serve on this page?

On our Which Ready-Meal Brand Is the Healthiest page, we explain that saturated fat matters for heart health rather than for the scales, and it is where cream-based sauces show up. Our Chilli & Ginger Baked Fish — 1.4 g Our Italian Beef Meatballs — 1.4 g Weight Watchers Peri Peri Chicken — 1.6 g Our Wholemeal Beef Lasagne — 2.3 g Lite n' Easy Honey Soy Chicken — 2.6 g Lite n' Easy Tasmanian Salmon Pasta — 2.7 g Youfoodz Slow-Cooked BBQ Beef & Mash — 2.9 g Youfoodz Creamy Garlic Chicken Kiev and Chips — 3.3 g Worth noting fairly: Weight Watchers' Peri Peri Chicken beat two of our three meals on this measure. We.

What should I know about sodium per serve on this page?

On our Which Ready-Meal Brand Is the Healthiest page, we explain that sodium is the measure where ready meals most often disappoint, because salt is doing the flavour work that herbs and spices could do instead. It is also the measure with the widest spread in this comparison. Our Italian Beef Meatballs — 143 mg Our Wholemeal Beef Lasagne — 154 mg Our Chilli & Ginger Baked Fish — 209 mg Weight Watchers Salmon & Chickpea Pasta — 282 mg Weight Watchers Peri Peri Chicken — 452 mg Youfoodz Clean Fish with Creamy Garlic Sauce — 531 mg Youfoodz Creamy Garlic Chicken Kiev and Chips — 643 mg Weight Watchers Massaman Beef Curry — 757 mg Lite.

What should I know about carbohydrates and sugar on this page?

On our Which Ready-Meal Brand Is the Healthiest page, we explain that our meals sit at the low end on carbohydrate, which follows from how we build them: under 20 g per meal, with the bulk of the plate given to vegetables and lean protein rather than rice, pasta or potato. We have not reproduced a brand-by-brand sugar table here. In the source data our carbohydrate and sugar columns cannot be cleanly separated, and publishing a split we cannot stand behind would be worse than publishing nothing. If sugar content is your deciding factor, read it off the current pack — it sits directly beneath carbohydrate on the panel.

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