The pie charts illustrated food budget ratio between dining out and home cooking the typical families spent in four different years from 1970 to 2000 with ten years gap. The ratio had grown progressively in favor of dining out in that period of time.
The family had spent five times more on restaurant meals in 2000 than they did in 1970. In 2000, half of the budget had been spent on restaurant meals while only 10% were spent on it in 1970. While the eating out budget portion increased by 5% and 15% compared from the previous decade in 1980 and 2000, respectively, the significant increasement happened in 1990. The budget had raised by 20% from the previous decade.
While the pie chart depicted the food budget comparison between dining out and eating at home, the line graph represented the number of meals per year of dinning out between the same period of time and the same 10 years gap. It specifically compared between the number of fast food meals eaten per year and the number of sit-down restaurant meals eaten per year, as indicated by solid line and segmented line, respectively. In 1970, the number was the same between of fast food and of sit-down restaurant, which was 40 meals eaten per year. Both numbers increased steadily but the number of fast food meal per year were always bigger from 1970 until the middle of 1980, when both numbers became equal again. From that year onward until 2000, the number of sit-down restaurant meals had increased significantly and had never been surpassed by the number of fast food meals which had been increasing also but not that fast.