I usually make a lot of food in the beginning of the month so I have lunch boxes for several weeks ahead. I make and eat my own breakfast at home and make my own bread. I like cooking though so it might be a personality thing.

45 comments

  1. I don’t have data for this but I’d say yes, you’re very much in the minority. A combination of time, ability and cost push most Americans to eat out regularly.

    On the cost issue: obviously meal prep at home should be the cheapest way to eat, but for people who don’t have time or don’t know, a prepared sandwich and French fries feels like a value.

  2. In an urban and probably suburban setting, I would imagine it is extremely uncommon to do so. Rural, I imagine is more commonplace. However, I do not have any specific data to verify or deny this.

  3. 99% of the time? Absolutely. Eating at home most of the time? Not at all. Personally, we eat out once a week and cook the other six.

  4. I grew up never eating out, so to me that is “normal”. Eating out was an event, not normal. As my parents got older maybe they were getting more tired because they started getting takeout food more often as the 4 of us kids were getting older and eating more as teens. But they still cooked at home most of the time. I’d say it was 99% down to 90%.

    I eat out as an adult, I dunno I guess I have cravings or something. But I always assumed more people ate at home. But I go in phases, sometimes I go out and eat every day and some months I only eat at home. I’m starting to think it might be health-related because I recently started taking vitamins and now I have all sorts of energy and I stopped going out to eat and now I have the energy to do all the chores and cooking. I haven’t eaten out in a few weeks now. Which brings me to another concept. In another sub someone asked why people eat out so much and someone said it’s because as a society we are exhausted because now we are having to have multiple jobs and other struggle issues and no longer have the time. And they are adding more and more easy options to eat out now that it’s inevitable.

  5. I eat breakfast at home and dinner at home. Lunch varies depending on where I am. If I am making plans with friends it will center on a meal out, maybe 3-4 times a month at most.

  7. Consider that 1% would only be 4 days a year (rounded up). I would say that, for the vast majority of people, cooking the rest of the time would be pretty uncommon. I’ll venture that most people at least grab some sort of premade food once a week or more, with that number growing higher as you look at younger adults. Even if you’re just grabbing McDonald’s, the cost vs ease is close enough to warrant the convenience for a lot of people. Fancier sit-down meals still happen, but less frequently because they cost significantly more.

  8. I haven’t had a meal at a fast food place or a sit down restaurant since August of last year but I’m an unusual case. I don’t really like restaurant food and I try to buy as little processed food as possible.

  9. 99% of the time? Yes. 80% of the time? No.

    I’m not sure how you would do 99% if you have an active social life. Socializing often involves food. We get asked out to eat by friends at least once a week every week, oftentimes more.

  11. Lets take a look at this question differently –

    If the median of the Americans are eating out… why 99% of the people are spending money on expensive kitchenette? Also a large package of things – like fully equipped kitchen room.

    That actually cost a lot of money…if you use it 1% of the time…why bother at all?

  12. 3 meals a day, 31 days some months would be 99 meals.

    So, once a month is takeout, delivery, or going out? Most people I know are 1-2/week out, some more depending on jobs, commute, social stuff.

  14. By “99%,” do you actually mean “the overwhelming majority of the time,” or do you mean that in 33 days of eating three meals each day, you eat out for one meal?

    Unless someone is in an extremely remote location, is housebound, or is quite poor, 99% would indeed be an anomaly.

  15. That’s a really high number. We cut back a lot for dining out once inflation started getting crazy. We just can’t justify it anymore. We went from eating out twice a week or more to like twice a month. That’s putting us at eating home 93.5% now.

  16. I eat out 1-2 times a month. The rest is home-cooked.

    I do live very rural and only eat out when I go to town for something, and even then, not every time.

  17. Probably an anomaly but my wife and I do it. We might have drinks while out playing pool or eat out once a month but generally we love cooking and are on a budget so we will often Google a restaurant menu and then re-create the dish at home.

  18. I love to cook. I am pretty good at it. However, I wouldn’t *want* to eat 99% of my meals at home. There’s too much great food to be had that I just couldn’t recreate. Not to mention sometimes its nice to take the night off and order a pizza or pick up Chinese.

    Especially if I am in a city or visiting a new region. Gotta try the local fare.

  19. Life events keep me eating out. But my friends and I usually meal prep 26 meals a week with 2 meals left over for eating out.

  20. I would say it is rather unusual, but there is certainly nothing wrong with it.

    I would guess that most people eat out around 30-50% of their meals. Lots of people eat out at least one meal per work day, for a lot of reasons. (It gives them an opportunity to leave the work environment, it’s the only way they can enforce their break, they don’t want to prepare to take in a meal, going out to lunch with their friends, and a significant number of jobs include a meal per shift in with the wages.)

    In some ways, school hot lunch programs might influence this behavior too. While they do a lot of good for the communities, particularly less affluent communities, it does normalize eating lunch “out” to kids.

    On the flip side, eating out 99% of the time, for people who are not in a residential institution of some kind, is probably also unusual. But again, there is nothing wrong with it. My guess is this group is probably as large or larger than their 1% counterparts, due to the urban areas where fresh food is really hard to get to, but fast food and restaurants are easier to get to.

  21. Three meals a day means in 33 days you have 100 meals. Let’s just round it to 100 meals a month. 1% would be eating out once a month and the rest at home, which sounds pretty normal to me for a family, but probably not normal for a single person or couple without kids. We probably eat out twice a month, with one of those being a nicer sit-down meal and the other being something like Chick-fil-A or Publix fried chicken when we want something quick and easy.

  24. Since the start of the pandemic, I rarely eat out anymore and make all the meals at home. But it’s now slightly less so.

  25. Where do you store food for weeks in advance?

    What kind of food?

    For a data point, we get take out pizza every Friday night and go out fairly frequently on weekends when we travel to a city to go to a museum, show, or some kind of event. If we can we eat before, but sometimes when you are out for a whole day, eating out is the only alternative. Plus it’s fun to eat different cuisines that I don’t cook well myself.

  27. Vast majority of the time is pretty normal. Plenty of people only eat a meal out once a week or once a month – especially in rural areas where options for eating out are (often) far fewer.

    ——–

    There may be some exceptions in some of the densest city centers – where apartments are often very small and have impractically small/cramped kitchens if you wish to actually cook all/most of. your meals.

    It’s still not at all unheard of for people to eat at home a lot, but the average person somewhere like Manhattan eats out a lot more than the US average. Both because it’s harder to store/prep/cook food in their apartment and because the options for doing so are much more plentiful.

  28. I would say my husband and I eat out 2 meals a week on average. Typically those meals out are on the weekend. One is usually a date for us and one is usually with friends. Sometimes it’s more if we have work dinners or in the summer just feel like being more social lol. In my early 20s, I ate like 60 – 70% of my meals out though

  29. Definitely an anomaly.

    Most people are probably eating out at least once a week even if that’s just getting takeout.

    Apparently 56% of Americans eat out or get takeout 2-3 times per week.

    6% eat out every day.

  30. It’s probably income dependent. I know some folks who do it, but we tend to eat out most meals on weekends.

  31. I probably eat out once pee week and prepare the majority of my meals at home. I know some people eat out daily, but that’s both extremely and unhealthy. I don’t understand how they do it.

  32. So from other comments I see you don’t literally mean 99% of the time. I think it also depends on how you define homemade. I get fast food or go out to eat usually once a week or so (aside from coffee. That’s another once or twice a week) either as a fancy occasion like date night or fast food when I don’t have the time or energy to cook (late meetings or feeling under the weather)

    I also love cooking and I even also make bread (sometimes. It’s not great for my health) but if we are going down to “making our own bread” level, a lot of my stuff isn’t “homemade” or doesn’t have 100% homemade elements. I’ll use premade wraps and dry pasta. I’ll used canned veggies sometimes. Sometimes I will buy pre seasoned or even cooked meat or frozen things. I like being able to make a lot of fresh stuff, but I live in the suburbs and both the adults in my household work full time and we have a kid in school so being able to make everything 100% from scratch just isn’t compatible with our lifestyle. So yeah I’m gonna buy my wraps premade but sautee my chicken breast and peppers and onions. I’m getting jarred Queso sauce for it, but shredding my own cheese. It’s a mix. Tonight I’m making rice, chicken and shrimp with some veggies. I’m not making my own teriyaki sauce, and I buy my shrimp cooked and frozen, but the rest of it is fresh/from scratch.

  33. No. Not everyone eats out daily.

    Baking your own bread might be on the edge of uncommon, but not wildly unusual. The only reason we don’t bake it more often is because in the summer the thought of turning on the oven makes us want to faint.

  34. > usually make a lot of food in the beginning of the month

    I like freshly made food so no

  35. Eating out like once a week seems to be pretty common. It varies wildly from household to household, though.

  36. It varies.

    Few people are actually eating all or even most of their meals out but it’s very common for someone to eat a meal out even once a day. Lunch is probably the meal most commonly eaten out. Plenty of people do grab a quick pastry or something on their way into the office for breakfast too.

    Dinner is probably the meal least commonly eaten out even if it’s most associated with it. It’s generally more expensive and time consuming.

    I like cooking and eating healthy so I make most of my meals. I do cater lunch for my employees every day so they eat out generally 5 meals a week at minimum.

  37. We only eat out once every 3-6 months or so. But I made my Covid project improving my cooking skills. I make pasta, bread, etc. now, so we can get very nice restaurant quality meals for a fraction of the price.

    One of our favorite activities now is making a meal and figuring out how much we saved by making it at home. Like how much would a plate of fresh made mushroom ricotta ravioli with truffle cost in a restaurant, made that day in house? Often $30-75/plate depending on where you go.

    That vs 2c flour, 2 eggs, a dash of salt, 2 T olive oil, a little water, a $3 tub of ricotta, $3 container of mushrooms were only use a few of, and a $18 thing of truffles from the restaurant supply store, that we only use a bit of at a time?

    Does it take time and work? Yes. But it tastes better, saves us a lot of money, and we get to eat like royalty.

    But that’s our home. I can’t speak for others.

  38. I go out to an actual restaurant once or twice per week. Most other meals are made at home, and occasionally takeout.

  40. My family usually eats out 1-2 meals a week. I’d say maybe over a year including vacations and the like maybe like 80-85% of my meals are cooked at home.

  41. Lots of Americans do not eat Leftovers (like you do OP, cooking a bunch thrn eating lef overs).. My husband did not eat leftovers when I met him.

  42. I cook almost every meal from whole raw foods and rarely eat prepackaged foods and rarely eat out (we eat out two days a month at most). I also make bread weekly. That’s not the norm for my neighbors and friends who eat a lot more prepackaged foods and eat out or get delivery often.

  43. I enjoy cooking and I do a lot of it, but I still probably eat out ~5% of the time. Eating at home 99% of the time would definitely be an anomaly.

  45. Yes, I’d say that’s extreme. People enjoy dining out occasionally, and sometimes when they are out and about, or on vacation, it’s way more convenient to eat out. Plus there’s the range of international cuisines that I wouldn’t do justice to if I tried to make at home. So eating home-made 99% of the time seems pretty unusual to me.

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