We read at escoffier.edu that “in 2023 Americans spent just 44.3% of their food budget on food at home (FAH)—an all-time low—while their spending on food away from home (FAFH) reached an all-time high of 55.7%.” In comparison, we read at sidneydailynews.com that “For every dollar spent on food in 1955, 25 cents went to restaurants.” This clearly indicates that Americans are spending considerably more on eating out at restaurants than they were back in the day, reflecting that restaurants, along with the delivery services that support those restaurants, are getting ever more money from the consumer. In fact, we read that according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans spend 12.8% of their total expenditures on food, which is a meaningful percentage of their expenditures.
Perhaps all of the money being allocated to restaurants is a good thing for consumers as well as the restaurants that serve them, but it has to be noted that restaurant food, with very few exceptions, is going to always be more expensive than eating at home, because it costs less to buy and then to cook food at home, which signifies that those that are on a budget, might well want to take the time to actually determine how much they spend on food each month and whether or not, by eating in more often, this would save them money; which would seem to be something desirable for a lot of people, especially those that don’t have any excess capital.
Indeed, when people look at their bills or inside their wallets, and wonder why it seems like they don’t have as much money as they should have, they need to consider that by changing some of their habitual expenditures, this would probably make a favorable impact for them. No doubt, restaurants do a stellar job in convincing people to eat at their particular establishment, but that doesn’t mean that the consumer of restaurant food doesn’t still have the free choice to devote something less of their expenditures on restaurants, and thereby save themselves some money by buying the equivalency from a grocery store.
So too, it’s probably true, that the skill set to cook food at home, is in decline, and because of that, more people spend money on restaurant food, when it would behoove them to learn how to cook, which because we have ovens, stoves, air fryers, and microwaves, in addition to our refrigerators and freezers, this would seem to not be a daunting task to develop this skill, though many a person either doesn’t desire to do so, or just can’t seem to find the urgency to do that.
It could also be the case that part of the reason why so many Americans are overweight and not in particularly good health may be that the food choices that they make aren’t good for them. While this may not be a given restaurant’s fault, it has to be said that there are many a restaurant that provides to the consumer too much sodium, artificial sweeteners, as well as sugar, and saturated fats. Also, there is the salient fact that many a restaurant serves a size portion which is probably greater than the consumer needs to eat, and in a construct in which a person has been trained that it is their duty to “clean their plate” this encourages them to overeat, which probably also isn’t going to be good for their overall health or weight.