1 in 5 only make one meal from scratch each week

BETWEEN busy schedules and an increasing number of ready meals and takeaways, it seems less effort than ever to avoid making a home-cooked dinner.

And many of us are taking the easy way out with cooking – as one in five Britons admits that they make a meal from scratch themselves only once a week at most, according to a study.

The younger generation are least likely to whip up a meal themselves, the BBC Good Food Nation survey found. Nearly three in ten of 18- to 24-year- olds confessed that they created a dish that used two or more ingredients only once every week – if that regularly.

And it seems that those in Scotland and Wales are more inclined to pick up a ready meal or takeaway, as according to the survey of 5,000 adults they were the least likely regions to cook from scratch. Despite the fashionable view that husbands and wives should divide the cooking duties equally, more than three in four women said they still do most of the meal preparation in their house.

Just 9 per cent of women claimed that their male partners did all of the cooking. Another area where there was a clear generational divide was in using mobile phones at the table.

It has become second nature for younger adults to share images of their meals on social media and, unsurprisingly, the survey also found older people were the most likely to be offended by guests using phones at the dinner table.

More than half of respondents aged 18 to 24 said they ‘don’t mind’ or feel ‘indifferent’ when they are with someone who takes pictures of a meal, but just 15 per cent of over35s said they would be happy for others to use their phone at the table.