[rusk]

I don’t think the accepted wisdom is that pre packaged meals are bad vs what you cook yourself it’s the quality that matters. It processed foods vs non processed foods. You can get posh TV dinners that are good for you but you pay for them. The cheaper stuff manufactured at scale is almost certainly going to be using cheaper/substituted ingredients because that’s just how business works. You’re going to be missing the macros you mentioned, as well as fibre and you’ll be taking on a lot of dodgy fats and sugars and typically many other additives used to flavour and preserve the food. What you get with home cooked dinners is control over your ingredients. Of course you could just eat ketchup and chips and you’re not going to be seeing a benefit but it’s hard to go wrong with rice, fish and a few vegetables for example.

There’s various other confounding factors such as how and when you eat, and ultimately your relationship with food.

There is plenty of research linking processed food with health risks.

[vorpalhex]

I think you are correct here in terms of the base argument but wrong for the origin.

You don't make food cheaper by reducing the quality of ingrediants since decent ingredients are still really cheap. You make food cheaper by making it more preserved.

A lot of food cost is in waste and spoilage. Cheap foods are typically things that handle well and don't perish easily.

You accomplish this by adding more fat, more salt, and heavily processing food. You strip all the bacteria and cultures from it and you can get a tv dinner to last a decade if it's packaged well.

On the other hand, gourmet food is all prone to spoilage. Squeaky cheese curds, fresh pasta, homemade tortillas, etc.