Which choice sounds more natural when talking about meal or foods that are already on the table waiting for their diners.
Should it be
The meal / food is ready.
or
The meal / food is prepared
?
Learn English – The meal / food is ready or is prepared
foodword-choice
Related Solutions
You're reading too much into the context around the words. While we may often speak of preparing for the worst, the words aren't inherently about negative consequences and situations.
The word prepare has a little flair of unwillingness ... On the other hand, the word ready itself denotes some negation and we are not optimistic.
Neither word carries any sense of negativity or unwillingness. We need not prepare only for bad things. For example, I have spent the last week preparing for my vacation and now I'm ready to leave. My vacation isn't "bad" and I'm definitely not unwilling to take it.
In short, if someone is ready, he simply accepts the thing but if someone is prepared he has the alternative way to come out of the situation.
No, this isn't the difference between the two words, because you've missed the appropriate meanings. As above, prepare and ready aren't about dealing with unwanted or unpleasant situations, so your remarks here don't apply.
While the gross meanings of prepared and ready are the same, there is a fine difference between the two. Specifically, one of time and expectations: ready is much more immediate than prepared, and we use it when talking about something expected to occur very soon. If we are prepared, we have gotten ready in advance, or even though something is unlikely to happen.
For example, in the linked article, it talks of being prepared for an Ebola outbreak in the US because one is extremely unlikely. Or examine my vacation example from earlier: I say I'm ready shortly before I leave, but speak of preparing during the time leading up to it.
Suppose I am putting my all money into a new business in a recession and someone warns me about the consequences, do these replies of mine mean the same?
"Don't worry, I'm ready for any consequences"
And...
"Don't worry, I'm prepared for any consequences"
These two are largely the same here. Prepared is more formal, but ready suggests a greater confidence (e.g. the common expression ready for anything) when talking about a hypothetical event. This is because of the subtext of immediacy with ready; even though you're just as prepared regardless of which word you use, if you say ready, people will hear even if this happened right now, I'm prepared to deal with it. When making the same comment with prepared, that right now isn't implied nearly as strongly.
The immediacy of ready over prepared is the reason for the differences that Lucian points out.
Western cuisine does not have a direct equivalent to garam, as there is no philosophical division of foods as there is in Ayurvedic or traditional Chinese medicine.
When the concept is translated, garam is generally translated as warming, and the opposite as cooling. If you are trying to preserve the original context and refer to Eastern concepts of warming and cooling foods, you will need to explain this, as there is simply no Western equivalent. I doubt any Westerner would guess that dill and wild rice are traditionally considered warming while cilantro and chicken eggs are considered cooling.
It is particularly important because all cuisines do understand that certain foods or flavors will be warming or cooling, but in English these terms are used much more restrictively, to refer to their literal effect on our palate or body temperature (or our perception of them). I don't think anyone would dispute that chili powder mixed into hot chocolate is warming, but no Westerner would automatically associate overconsumption with indigestion or unhealthy skin because it is warming.
In general usage, most foods would be considered neutral, and those classified as warming or cooling may differ considerably from Indian or Chinese tradition. Nuts and lemonade are neither, except when they are literally hot or cold (e.g. freshly roasted nuts or ice-chilled lemonade).
(Note also that lemonade means different things in different places. In Britain it is a fizzy drink, like a light Sprite or 7-Up without the lime. In North America it is uncarbonated and similar to what Britons would call a lemon squash, and a lemon squash can be served hot or cold).
Best Answer
Technically it seems like they should be used interchangeably but in common usage you wouldn't normally hear "prepared" to mean "ready". In fact, in British English we use the word "preparation" more to describe the early stages of a task. Recipes may describe chopping of vegetables prior to cooking as the "preparation" stage before the cooking "method".
Consider these examples:
This does not mean the food is ready. It doesn't even mean that the preparation is underway. It simply means that food is prepared in the kitchen.
This means that the food is fully prepared and is in the kitchen.
If you wanted to use the word "prepared" then it would be better as:
This confirms the preparation has been completed. But your question is specifically about which is more natural and so I have to say that "ready" is the word you would most likely hear in English.