"Melba's Jammin'" > wrote in message
...
> It's the last sentence in the paragraph that caught my attention. Do
> you believe the statement?
>
> <http://www.chicagotribune.com/featur...-schools-20100
> 717,0,7359675.story>
>
> "This country cooks. Something like 70 percent of all meals are going to
> be prepared in one form or another by someone in the house," says Harry
> Balzer, chief industry analyst of the NPD Group, where he has followed
> Americans' eating and drinking patterns for 25 years. "The average
> American gets about 200 meals (a year) from a restaurant and that's
> almost unchanged for 10 years."

Unchanged in 10 years? I see the lines getting longer at the fast food
place drive through and I see much more prepared foods at supermarkets.
As for 200 meals a year, that is on the light side if you go out to lunch
every day at work. We eat out usually one a week for dinner a couple of
times a month for breakfast and I think we are on the lighter side of eating
out. I can see where a lot of couples would easily top that 200. I'd also
guess that it may be down the past year or so, but unchanged in 10 years
seems a stretch.