If you're actually curious in the physics of food, check out the journal of food engineering. We use much more complex physical models to simulate the physics of food.
Fun note, this is my job and it is pretty cool to really dig into the science behind cooking and then apply that to an industrial scale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Food_and_Cooking
The science and history of food! Great illustrations too.
https://www.youtube.com/frenchguycooking
I like it because he shows taste and sensitivity to the culinary arts, he's hilarious, but actually goes in depth on the topics.
Frozen meals tend to have very high levels of salt in them. They also have poor quality ingredients, so are not as nutritional as you think.
If you must live on frozen meals, try making them in large quantities yourself over a weekend, and freeze them. Most basic 'meat & vegetables' meals can be frozen and re-heated.
If I were to use a frozen meal, I'd have to defrost, and then cook, and likely would want something alongside it - like veg or salad. Unless Chef Mike (Microwave) is employed. I find it hard to see this being that much quicker.
I've had one pre-prepared bought in meal this year. Most convenience foods like this have a strange processed taste - that isn't just salt. This is coming from someone whose sense of taste has been shot totally to pieces.
A part that's much quicker is that you just grab a frozen meal from the store, rather than first figuring out what to cook and then searching for ingredients at various sections of the store.
Then for the first few days after you shop, cook the meals you planned. And towards the end of the week, open the fridge/cupboard and think "what needs to be used up?"
The more you do it, the easier it gets.
It is generally thought that we eat way more salt than is considered healthy. Too much salt increases the risk of high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, and kidney failure.
The Dutch government — to cite just one example — states that 80% of people in the Netherlands eat too much salt¹; i.e., more than 6 grammes per day, and lists the health issues mentioned above.
Conversely, eating too little salt is quire rare nowadays due to the high amount of salt in store bought products.
1: https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/encyclopedie/zout-en-natrium....
1) what's the most helpful physics-based cooking tip most people aren't aware of?
2) are there efforts in food engineering to apply machine learning to recipes in the same way some projects are trying to automate other creative functions like graphic design?
Searing (dry, high heat) produces maillard reactions which are responsible for lots of flavors that we like. So searing is good, but it's better to cook your meat to just below the temperature you want, then take it out and sear it. You'll have a more consistent doneness.
2) this is for food science, not food engineering.But yes, my this is a new area food companies (and specifically my boss) is getting into is to use AI/ML for understanding process and recipes to design new foods or troubleshoot problems