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Brits are dashing home from work and preparing their week-night dinners at lightning speed, a study by Asian food brand Amoy has revealed.
According to the findings, 22% of us spend 15 minutes or less each evening preparing dinner, with longer working hours and arduous commutes contributing to us cutting down on time spent creating evening meals.
The survey also showed that, day-to-day, more than one in eight of us don’t know what we are having for dinner that evening, with just 12% of respondents sticking to a meal plan made in advance.
It seems that life on the go and demanding work schedules mean that time-poor Brits are increasingly on the look-out for quick and easy meal solutions, with 69% of us scouring the shelves for meals that are quick to prepare and almost half (46%) frequently looking to the internet for recipe ideas.
Busy lifestyles are also resulting in consumers multi-tasking at tea time, with a fifth of us admitting to having dinner in front of the television and one in 10 simultaneously surfing social media sites, such as Facebook.
Commenting on the study, consultant psychiatrist and behavioural expert Dr Ben Sessa said: “This research reveals an important shift in how Brits view dinner time and its role in 2014. Dinner once marked a focal point in the day of the average UK consumer, but the convenience culture in which we live in 2014 means that cooking our meals has to be an easy and quick process.
“It’s also interesting to see that Brits are increasingly moving away from giving dinner time their undivided attention. Smart devices and screens that are never far from our glance mean that week-day mealtimes have become another opportunity for us to multi-task. Both of these behavioural patterns mean that the UK needs quick and convenient solutions that don’t compromise on quality.”
