why do ready meals never look the same as they do on the box??

For the same reason models never look the way they do in the magazines -- Paint, Light, and photo retouching.

As far as the taste goes, chuck the meal, eat the box, it has more fiber and tastes better.

Look closely at the box and you'll see in tiny words "serving suggestion". They add things to it to make it appeal to the eye.

Boxed food never tastes as good as food made from all fresh ingredients no matter how they show it fancied up on the box!

the box must look nice in order for them to sell the product, keep in mind that the product is mass produced so all the taste and flavoring and most important look of the product is out of the window as no machine can pack it so that it will look like the picture

Because of the cheap ingredients they use... nothing ever looks as good as on the picture.

As an aside, the pictures used are often of frozen products or are not food at all - they can be wax or photoshopped etc. It's all about advertising - think about the last ready meal you cooked, would you have bought it if the picture on the front looked like what you actually ate?!

The ones pictured are probably hand cooked with care, and the ones inside the box are pre-cooked in giant pans and dumped into the containers by machines !.

i know just like commercials MC Donald's and burger king the burgers look so good and there nicely placed together then you get it .....the ketchup is everywhere the lettuce isn't on the burger but all over the box and its just slopped together..they do that so that it catches you;r eye and you buy it....sneaky bastards..lol (have you'r girlfriend make you a homemade meal there the best!)

The image on the box is just a lie to make you buy the product. Everyone knows they actually come out looking like a steaming pile of turd!!!

Because you don't have a professional photographer making your meals for you.

Thats advertising. Like models who pose for wrinkle creams and really their photos are actually air brushed so they dont show any flaws.

because it aint the same one, do you think they should take a picture of everyone then print it on the front... and they dont taste that bad... try tescos ones