How TV Dinners Changed The Way America Cooked, Forever

Nothing quite conveys America's need for quick culinary convenience like a TV dinner — turkey and gravy with mashed potatoes and peas, all neatly portioned in an easy oven-ready tray. The TV dinner of the 1950s and 60s has changed a lot in the decades since. Today, frozen foods are now a booming category in supermarkets, a category that TV dinners helped to launch. Frozen foods were among the fastest-growing grocery category during the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing in $72.2 billion in retail sales in 2022, nearly a 34% increase compared to 2019.

Chapters:
0:00 — Introduction
01:07 — The TV dinner origin story
04:33 — The need for speed
06:41 — What’s next?

Produced by: Kate Sammer
Supervising Producer: Jeff Morganteen
Graphics by: Alex Wood

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How TV Dinners Changed The Way America Cooked, Forever

[Ohmygodstfu]

Couldn’t imagine eating these for more then a fun treat on Friday.

Grew up with Indian parents and my mom cooked and still cooks every day. I am very thankful for meals with fresh seasonal ingredients.

[innerlocus]

No TV dinners in my house when growing up, thanks, mom.

[KailuaChick]

My dad lives on Hungry Man and Swanson dinners yet he swears he doesn’t eat any processed food 🤦‍♀️

[Initiallyleo]

For me, we usually had home cooked meals growing up, or takeout if no one felt up to cooking. Frozen dinners were a rare treat - the sort of thing that never really tasted good, but was kind of exciting for a kid who saw all the commercials and wanted that little brownie side.

[est]

These things literally saved me when I was out in a college overseas and got my leg broken in the middle of winter. One of my classmates did the grocery shopping for me, consisting of tv dinners, yogurt, bakery items and bananas. He dropped these off at my apartment weekly and it was a huge reason I survived that stressful period. I only had a microwave in my apartment and survived comfortably. Ngl I miss those meals sometimes they actually taste pretty decent. We don't have so many varieties of frozen dinner here in southeast Asia.

[DarianWade]

Really been enjoying these mini documentary type videos lately

[anthonygordon]

I am surprised they didn't mention the high sodium in TV dinners.

[kc_]

I'm Asian and my family rarely had these frozen tv dinners. Even though my mom is a working mom she made sure we had a good home cooked meal to eat every night. My parents grew up in a society where every morning you head out to the market to buy fresh food and ingredients to prep your dish for the evening, and that holds true today.

[freddyfriend]

I have noticed that food I cook myself never gives me satisfaction and full pleasure when I eat it. I always find food cooked by somebody else to be generally more tasty and desirable even if its ingredients are inferior to the ones used by me. It is a strange paradox but I cannot do anything about it.

[hbshined]

I love this video and these types of videos. They're so fascinating

[aztronomy]

My roommate in college used to have 20 of these stacked up in the freezer at all times. I gag thinking about how he survived on those for years 😂

[dddon]

As a stupid kid, I ate these things sometimes. As an adult, they're vomitous. A million milligrams of salt camouflaging the lowest quality grade F items legally allowed to be sold.

[Truth-of-the-matter]

The growth of frozen meals was definitely impacted as more women (who typically prepared the meals) were moving into the workforce. Nowadays while frozen meals are still prevalent there is definitely a trend with younger people returning to cooking after learning about the ingredients often used in hyper-processed foods. I myself enjoy cooking (mostly from scratch) and the only frozen meal I enjoy from time to time is a pizza. Cost wise you are definitely spending more on anything that's already prepared for you.

[eliu]

This is interesting - my family consumes both original meals cooked from raw ingredients (both my grandparents love cooking and are well-versed with cuisine from Sichuan, China where we are from) as well as using frozen foods, such as supermarket dumplings that are "pre-wrapped" and can be cooked and steamed at home. Original meals include our main courses, meat dishes, and vegetable dishes, while as mentioned frozen foods usually are dumplings or other foods that would otherwise need a lot of hands-on preparation, which obviously uses convenience. My grandfather used to wrap his own dumplings every weekend until I was around 10, but it was time-consuming and a bit tiring so we stopped around then.

If I were to guess, I would say most American families probably do a similar mix of home-cooked meals and select frozen items that justify their convenience and time saved, as opposed to all original home-cooking or all frozen dinners (oh god, the thought of that lol). And I would argue that the frozen foods my family uses don't count as "TV dinners" because it is a single dish (then supplemented with our original home-cooking), rather than a pre-portioned cross-section of foods that can be microwaved together for an entire dinner.

[pablsauced]

This video started auto playing while I was taking my frozen chicken alfredo out of the microwave 💀

[baronvonjo]

TV dinners were never a big part of my life. We had a few of course. But it was maybe less than 10 times in my life and all when I was under the age of 10. I really don't know many people who do it. However of course people are buying them at stores so some folks still do it.

Frozen foods don't really bother me. It's just the microwave dinners that are weird.

It's really sad how most of us really don't know how top cook well, can afford good ingredients, and don't have the time to cook. That lady is right. No time for such things for most of us.

[SoapinTrucker]

In the 70's, my teenage years, tv dinners meant no dishes to do, a cool desert, and of course, Mom and Dad stressed out less! 😎👍

[jcllrxf]

I grew up on tv dinners as my family was poor and I didn't realize it wasn't "normal" until some friends made fun of me for it and I got embarrassed that we ate them literally every day. Hey, some taste good and are filling though. It's way better than nothing!!!

[diobrando]

As a bengali im grateful for the fresh dinners i had growing up.

[stoundingresults]

Most recent thanksgiving holidays I buy my Hungryman Turkey Dinner and stick it in the Freezer a week before. Hits the spot with a lot of butter and pepper. And I am truly grateful that day.