The pie charts compare the average families’ food budget spent on restaurant meals and home cooking in different years. The graph illustrates the difference in meals eaten in fast-food restaurants and sit-down restaurants per family, from 1980 to 2010.
In the first chart, we can easily see that back in 1985, home cooking was more popular than eating at a restaurant. Only 10% of the food budget was for eating outside, and the line graph indicates that sit-down restaurants were the choice of the average families in 1985. In a 10-year process, the budget spent on restaurant meals increased by 5% while fast-food meals began to be preferred over sit-down restaurant meals. In the early 1990s, fast-food meals and sit-down restaurant meals were at the same level. However, fast-food meals’ popularity had a rapid and major increase after that.
In 2005, there was a huge rise in the money the average families spent on restaurant meals, but home cooking was still chosen over it with 65%. Meanwhile, the gap between fast-food and sit-down restaurant meals got bigger. After 10 years, the budget spent on eating at home and eating at a restaurant became equal. People who eat at a restaurant started to pick fast-food over sit-down restaurant meals by nearly a difference of two times.