What We Mean by “Real Food”

"Real food" gets used a lot, so it's worth being clear about what we mean. At RealPlate it's meals made mostly from recognisable ingredients, cooked in a way that fits a normal week.

That's vegetables, meat, fish, beans, grains, herbs, olive oil, pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes, yoghurt, stock. You cook the meal itself from those, which is the part that matters. Buying the bread, the pasta and the stock rather than making them is where nearly every kitchen draws the line, and ours draws it in the same place.

Ultra-processed foods stay in the background rather than banned outright. A burger night, a pizza night, something quick from the freezer – they've all got their place. They just sit alongside proper meals instead of becoming the default.

Most of the time we want food that feels properly cooked without making the week harder than it needs to be: a simple sauce, vegetables used well, spices warmed in oil, meat or beans turned into something satisfying. It doesn't have to be fancy – it just has to feel like a meal.

A lot of that comes down to a handful of ordinary ingredients. Tinned tomatoes, beans and yoghurt are what make cooking properly possible when time, energy and money are tight.

Real food also has to be practical. For us that means ingredients you can find in a UK supermarket, recipes that work on a weeknight, and meals that fit around leftovers, freezer food, takeaway, children, work, tiredness and plans changing.

We're not trying to get you cooking everything from scratch, or following food rules perfectly – just to make good dinners easier to plan, shop for and cook.