By Michael Moran

Copyright glasgowlive

A YouTuber who challenged himself to survive exclusively on Iceland’s £1 Value Ready Meals was left stunned by the impact on his body.

Sam Wilder, who has previously tested other popular food chains including Greggs and Toby Carvery, outlined the rules he’d set before embarking on his week-long trial.

He explained: “The rules are; Number one, I only have a maximum of £1 to spend per meal, which means my full budget is £21. And number two, I have to eat at least three different products a day.”

By restricting himself to Iceland’s bargain £1 range, he couldn’t include some of the more popular items like branded pizzas or Greggs’ sausage rolls in his diet.

Sam reckoned that, in some ways, the first meal would be the trickiest. He explained: “I think breakfast is going to be the hard thing. I don’t think they do any one-pound breakfasts.

“Before I went shopping, I did have a little look online and whilst there are plenty of one pound options, there’s really not very many breakfast options.”

Kicking off the day with a lasagne, he noted wryly, didn’t appear to be the best choice. Eventually, Sam settled on Iceland’s bacon and cheese turnover – which at £1 for two immediately kept him well within his spending budget.

Sam pointed out that, despite the UK grappling with a cost-of-living crisis since 2021 and prices skyrocketing across the board, Iceland has kept their ready meal prices at a mere £1. “I think it’s pretty much a miracle,” he expressed.

While he had some doubts about the nutritional value of a week’s worth of frozen meals, he was overjoyed with his breakfast choice. “I tucked into my 50p turnover and oh my God, wow, it was genuinely fantastic,” he exclaimed.

“The pastry was flaky and tasty. The cheese was gooey and flavourful. And the amount of bacon bits in there was actually pretty, I was really happy.”

His day started off on a high note, and his lunch followed suit. He chose Chinese chicken with rice, and although Sam thought that rice didn’t freeze particularly well, there was a significant upside.

“There were plenty of peas and carrots,” he noted, “which is great as I was genuinely worried I wouldn’t get any veg throughout the next week. So, it was good to see these on my first full meal.”

In addition to assessing the meals for taste and value, Sam was also keeping an eye on his health, having weighed himself before starting his experiment. He clarified: “A week on frozen ready-meals probably isn’t very good for you, so to counter any potential bad side effects, I’ll be spinning, cross-fitting, or walking the dog every single day. Sometimes all three!”.

Making Sam’s trial even trickier was the fact that his wife wasn’t taking part. He continued: “While I had my frozen spaghetti bolognese, my wife decided to rub it in by making her own one, which looks so much better than mine.”

Although he admitted that his £1 ready-meal couldn’t compete with the home-cooked alternative, it somehow grew more palatable as he ate it.

At the close of the first day, he disclosed: “I had eaten £2.50 worth of food and was in a calorie deficit by 39% of my recommended intake.”

Sam observed that, given he had put on a bit of weight during his recent honeymoon, losing a pound or two might not be such a bad thing.

As his experiment progressed, another of Sam’s concerns – that things might get repetitive – was also put to bed. “There’s a surprising amount of variety in this range,” he remarked, adding: “Snacks, pastries, pizzas, full-on dinners..”

Nevertheless, some of the £1 range products were rather tricky to track down. Sam mentioned it took ages before he could locate Iceland’s hard-to-find fish pie – and when he eventually did, it proved somewhat disappointing.

The fish pie held a fairly modest amount of fish – just around 15% – but the remaining components performed well. “The mash is very creamy,” he noted, explaining that it resembled the mash that had crowned an Iceland cottage pie he’d sampled earlier that week.

“Yes, it’s reconstituted potato,” he confessed, “but it’s creamy and it’s tasty. The sauce is nice as well.”

Despite being amongst the most sought-after products in the selection, the fish pie was “nothing to write home about,” according to Sam, though at merely £1 he remained “pleasantly surprised.”

He’d managed to stay comfortably under his spending limit, forking out just £17 on his weekly shop. “It was cheaper than my normal food shop,” Sam remarked, “so that’s a win.”

An added treat for Sam was realising that by restricting himself to Iceland’s £1 selection for a full week, he’d lost some weight whilst saving money.

Sam found that he’d shed roughly a kilogram over the seven-day period. To wrap up, Sam disclosed there was truly just one major downside. “Some frozen meals are good, some frozen meals are bad,” he explained “but I mostly just miss fresh food.”