During an average week, American consumers eat dinner at home 5.7 times (Sloan, 2016). Generally, food prepared at home is healthier than food obtained away from home (Virudachalam, Long, Harhay, Polsky, & Feudtner, 2014). Lower household wealth and education attainment are associated with a higher likelihood of either always or never cooking dinner at home; wealthier, more educated households were more likely to sometimes cook dinner at home (Virudachalam et al., 2014).

Fifty-eight percent of the main dishes made at home are made from scratch or made with fresh ingredients (Parade, 2014). Most people who prepare meals at home either very often or occasionally incorporate convenience items, such as pre-prepared and/or frozen ingredients to make from scratch cooking easier and quicker. Generally, the more convenient the meal is, the greater the impact all around on time, budget, and nutritional value. Frozen complete or nearly complete meals or boxed “helper” type entrées earn their designation as “convenient” but cost more than “from-scratch” items, lack that “homemade” taste, tend to be high in sodium, and the 1- to 2-cup portion sizes listed on the label may leave many people hungry. See Box 10.2 for tips on balancing convenience with nutrition.

A relatively new and growing option for preparing food at home is to use a meal kit delivery service. Consumers choose from a list of available meals online and receive the recipe and all the ingredients in the proper portions delivered to their door. Salt, pepper, and oil may be the only additional ingredients needed. These services are attractive to people who do not have the time for or interest in meal planning and food selection and they enable people to try new cuisines without investing in exotic ingredients such as a bottle of a spice when only a fraction of a teaspoon is needed. Meal kits tend to get favorable reviews for taste, variety, freshness, and convenience and eliminate waste from leftovers. On the downside, they are more expensive than traditionally prepared meals, the sodium content tends to be high, and not all delivery services provide nutrition information on their recipe cards.

Data from 2012 show that 43.1% of food spending was on food away from home (FAFH), which has risen steadily from 25.9% in 1970 (U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA], Economic
Research Service [ERS], 2014). Although eating out may be easy and quick, diet quality suffers. Meals and snacks based on food prepared away from home contain more calories per eating occasion than home-prepared food (USDA, ERS, 2014). A study by Todd, Mancino, and Lin (2010) found that for the average adult, eating one meal of FAFH increases daily calorie intake by 134 calories. In addition, FAFH decreases the number of servings of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and dairy per 1000 calories consumed; and fiber, calcium, and iron intakes decline. Conversely, FAFH increases sodium per 1000 calories and the percentage of calories from saturated fat, solid fat, alcohol, and added sugar. Because eating out has evolved from a special treat to a regular event, planning and menu savvy are needed to ensure that eating out is consistent with, not contradictory to, eating healthy. Tips for eating healthy while eating out appear in Box 10.3. “Best bet” choices from various ethnic restaurants are listed in Box 10.4.

Another category of food cooked away from home is prepared meals from the grocery store. Prepared food is a $29-billion-a-year business and is growing twice as fast as overall grocery store sales (Hobson, 2016). The trend in buying prepared items began with the desire for convenience;

its growth is fueled by consumers’ perception that prepared food is fresher and healthier than take out dinners or convenience foods from the frozen food aisle. However, the “fresh” food may not actually be made on premises, sodium content is often high, serving sizes are not suggested so it is easy to over buy and overeat, and items are generally much more expensive than making the item at home.

Convenience Food broadly defined as any product that saves time in food preparation, ranging from bagged fresh salad mixes to frozen packaged complete meals.

Culture determines what is edible and what is inedible. To be labeled a food, an item must be readily available, safe, and nutritious enough to support reproduction. However, cultures do not define as edible all sources of nutrients that meet those criteria. For instance, in the United States, horsemeat, insects, and dog meat are not considered food, even though they meet the food criteria. Culture overrides flavor in determining what is offensive or unacceptable. For example, you may like a food (e.g., rattlesnake) until you know what it is; this reflects disliking the idea of the food rather than the actual food itself. An unconscious food selection decision process appears in Figure 10.1.

Edible foods that are part of an individual’s diet.

Inedible foods that are usually poisonous or taboo.

Every culture has a ranking for its foods that is influenced by cost and availability. Major food categories include core foods, secondary foods, and peripheral, or occasional, foods.

Traditional methods of preparation vary between and within cultural groups. For instance, vegetables often are stir-fried in Asian cultures but boiled in Hispanic cultures. What is deemed a healthy cooking method in the United States, such as baking and grilling, may be seen by other groups as causing an undesirable change in the nature of the food (Carr, 2012). Traditional seasonings also vary among cultures and may be the distinguishing feature between one culture’s foods and another’s (Table 10.1). The choice of seasonings varies among geographic regions and between seasons, based on availability. With home-prepared meals, seasonings are adjusted to suit the family’s preferences.