According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2018:

1.  “44% of all food spending was on food away from home.
2. Consumers (household units) spent $3, 459 on food away from home, or approximately 1/4 the amount spent on basic shelter.
3. Spending on dinner away from home was more than breakfast and brunch and lunch combined.
4. Consumers prefer full-service restaurants for dinner” (Spotlight on Statistics).

“In the Harvard Business Review, researcher Eddie Yoon shares data he’s gathered over two decades working as a consultant for consumer packaged goods companies. Early in Yoon’s career, he conducted a survey that determined that Americans fell into one of three groups:

• 15 percent said they love to cook
• 50 percent said they hate to cook
• 35 percent are ambivalent about cooking

When Yoon conducted the same survey 15 years later, the percentages had changed. Only 10 percent of consumers professed a love of cooking, while 45 percent said they outright hated it and 45 percent were on the fence. “I’ve come to think of cooking as being similar to sewing,” Yoon writes. “As recently as the early 20th century, many people sewed their own clothing. Today the vast majority of Americans buy clothing made by someone else; the tiny minority who still buy fabric and raw materials do it mainly as a hobby” (Martin).