How Often Do You Do Take-Out?

Take-Out Takes Over American Meals
Monday, January 16, 2006
By Jennifer Warner

Although most Americans eat their evening meal at home, only one in three actually makes it from scratch, as takeout and convenience foods are becoming increasingly common on the dinner table.

A new study of trends in U.S. food consumption shows made-from-scratch dinners have dropped 7 percent over the last two years and now account for only 32 percent of evening dinners.

Meanwhile, Americans are now more likely to order takeout from a restaurant than be seated there. Researchers found the average American ate 80 meals at restaurants in 2005 and took home 57 of them, compared with only 33 takeout meals 20 years ago.

In fact, one in five restaurant meals was purchased from a car without ever stepping into the restaurant itself.

Pizza, burgers, and Chinese were the top takeout choices, but ready-to-eat meals purchased at a supermarket are growing in popularity.

The study, published in Food Technology, shows that hamburgers, french fries, and pizza were the top three most popular items ordered in restaurants overall by adult men and women

Three-quarters of Americans said they ate reduced/nonfat foods in the last year, and more than half said they ate "lite" foods.

I do not want to spoil you with all the tidbits here but this was a very interesting article.
It is no wonder there is such a high percentage of take out. With restaurants from Applebee's to Black Angus offering curbside meals to go, why cook? Gee, I wish I had the wallet for that kind of eating. I will say I cook and I do cook a lot from scratch food. With both me and my husband working full time and the baby coming, I do go to the store now and look for the easy items sometimes. I have some great recipe books for quick meals that are from scratch so I use those a lot and I love my Crock-Pot. Here is one example of easy cooking for a busy family. Just get some stew meat and one of those boxes(maybe Betty Crocker) for beef stew and throw it in the Crock-Pot before you leave for work and you have a meal when you get home. I just put some corn bread(Marie Callendars (just add water) in the oven and you have a quick meal when you get home. Beats cutting up all that stuff for a stew yourself. Campbell's website has great recipes and I have a ton from there and then I got my Campbell's cookbooks and I love those. Quick easy meals is the ticket and they can still be from scratch and save you money.