Grocery shopping vs. eating out

“Food has replaced music at the heart of the cultural conversation,” (Dornbusch) Somehow the focus of culture has drifted towards food and the experience one gets from the act itself.  Today people commonly refer to themselves as being a foodie, a person with a particular interest in food; a gourmet. With a new focus towards food, one can weigh the costs of eating out vs. cooking at home and which of the two are cheaper.

Dornbusch, a writer for the Boston Globe  focuses on the percentage of people that eat out vs the more traditional cooking at home method due to cost. She references a study that was done on the costs of eating out, it being cheaper by nearly $2 or $3 dollars than cooking at home. To test this absurd theory in her eyes, she goes out to eat and then replicates the meal at home herself.  The costs are very close as far as grocery shopping goes but with left overs being taken into account, cooking at home resulted in being much cheaper. Cooking for one person and having a plethora of leftovers truly stretches the dollar past one meal being ordered on seamless.

With a clear difference in cost, choosing to eat at home and save money in the bank would appear to be the most logical answer. Yet as of today groceries eaten at home have continued to fall. “ As the industry publication Nation’s Restaurant News recently pointed out, federal data shows that average prices for food eaten at home in January actually fell 0.5% year over year.” (Tuttle). With increasing percentages of people eating out and not grocery shopping, it appears that the cause for eating out must stem from another root. As Dornbusch mentioned the culture of food has taken a direction towards food. As culture changes so does the way people eat.

Work Cited:

Dornbusch, Jane . “Is eating out cheaper than cooking at home?” Boston Globe, Aug 20, 2013. Web. Nov 10, 2017 www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2013/08/20/put-new-study-test-eating-out-cheaper-than-cooking-home/CytldzC97LORKpESA31RTI/story.html.

Tuttle, Brad . “Why You Should Feel Even More Guilty About Eating Out at Restaurants All the Time.” Time, Everyday Money . Food & Drink, Mar 3 2016. Web. Nov 10, 2013 time.com/money/4245285/costs-restaurants-cooking-at-home/.

---“Generations of Americans who gathered around a kitchen table for home-cooked meals would be puzzled by the way we eat today: As of last year, we now spend more on food at restaurants than we do on supermarket groceries—a reversal of a decades-old pattern.”--- I'm still up in the air if this quote will help my article.