The illustrations demonstrate the ratio of the food budget people spent on homemade food and restaurant meals and the figure for fast food restaurant meals and sit-down restaurant meals from 1970 to 2000.
Overall, a clear trend emerged, indicating that the food budget spent on restaurant meals experienced a significant rise throughout the given period. Notably, the fast food meals eaten also increased dramatically.
Initially, in 1970, 90% of the total food budget was spent on homemade foods while only 10% was spent on restaurant foods. The amount spent on restaurant meals increased to around 15% in 1980 while this figure reached more than a third after a decade. Finally, in 2000, an average family spent half of the total budget on restaurant meals and that shows a surge in people’s habit of having meals in restaurants.
In terms of the line graph, although fast-food meals and sit-down restaurant meals held an equal share of approximately 20 meals in 1970, fast-food restaurants witnessed a sharper rise in the number of people having meals than sit-down restaurants. In 2000, fast-food meals occupied the highest number, stabilizing at around 85 meals, while only 50 meals was included in sit-down restaurant.