On 10/14/13 5:23 AM, dadiOH wrote:
"Dean Hoffman" " wrote in
message

Americans are spending less of their disposible income
on food as time goes by. I looked at the U.S. Department
of Agriculture site. It has that type of information but
it is unavailable due to the "shutdown". There is a
chart he http://tinyurl.com/3yqoses Americans spent
about 23% of their disposable income in 1930. We were
spending about 9.5% of it by 2010.


Of course, that is "at home"expenditure, not total.

The first paragraph of the article breaks the expense down to about
5.5% at home and about 4% away from home for 2009. I didn't see
anything more at a quick glance.

When I was a kid, eating out was maybe a once or twice a year thing and
there was no such thing as "fast food". Now, restaurants of all kinds have
proliferated and people eat out frequently; they patronize fast food places
even more frequently.

Eating in town was a big deal especially for farm kids. I still
remember a McDonalds in Lincoln, NE. It had the golden arches but no
place to sit if I recall correctly.
Small towns typically had bars/restaurants. Most of those would
have a noon special. One could probably get a burger or pizza if the
bartender was in a good mood in the evenings.
I guess I did eat "in town" five days a week during the school year.
That was mandatory.