How to read a ready meal pack, from the name to the use-by date
Six zones on a ready meal pack tell you what is inside, how much, until when it is safe and how to heat it. Here is how to read each one under Thai labelling rules.
Ingredients & Real Food
Additives, sugar, salt and oils: what the label says and what it means for the meal you buy.
Added sugar vs natural sugar: what a label shows and what it hides
A carton of juice can honestly say "no added sugar" and still hold the sugar health advice tells you to cut. Free, added and total sugars explained, with the WHO and Thai limits.
Choosing cooking oils: fat types, heat and reuse
Smoke-point charts make choosing an oil look like a one-number decision. It isn't: the mix of fats, the heat and time, reuse and the amount on the plate all count, and no oil is perfect or forbidden.
No added MSG: what it means and what it does not
A "no added MSG" label means nobody put MSG in the recipe. It is not a safety claim and not a promise of glutamate-free food. What regulators say and how to read Thai labels.
Preservatives and shelf life: what keeps a ready meal safe
A preservative is one of several hurdles that keep chilled food safe, alongside cold, heat, acidity, hygiene and packaging. Without it, the fridge and the use-by date carry more of the load.
Salt and sodium: how to read the milligrams on a label
If a ready meal label says 920 mg of sodium, multiply by 2.5: that is about 2.3 g of salt, almost half of WHO's daily limit. How the conversion works and where the sodium hides.