Ed Pawlowski wrote:
> "Melba's Jammin'" > wrote

>> 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.

Not only do I like to eat out, if I count how many times we order
chinese food or pick up a sub, or stop for breakfast on the way
to shopping or whatever, I don't have any trouble believing the
200 number. Sometimes we go long stretches with never eating
out, then we have stretches where there isn't much cooking going
on here.

Forget when we were working, every lunch was a meal out.

nancy