American dining habits span restaurant meals, takeout, fast food, and food prepared away from home. Recent national data show that food-away-from-home spending reached $3,945 per consumer unit in 2024, while 30.1% of U.S. youth ages 2–19 consumed fast food on a given day during August 2021–August 2023. The measures below cover household spending, national food accounts, reported visits, and dietary intake; dates and populations differ by source.
Contents
- How much Americans spend away from home
- National spending, shares, and prices
- What adults report about restaurant visits
- Adult fast-food habits by age, sex, race, and income
- Children and adolescents
- The long-run role of restaurants
How much Americans spend away from home
The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks food-away-from-home spending per consumer unit. A consumer unit is the reference household or financial group used in the Consumer Expenditure Survey, so this measure is not the same as spending per individual.
Average annual spending increased across each year from 2021 through 2024:
- In 2021, the average was $3,030 per consumer unit.
- In 2022, it was $3,639.
- In 2023, it reached $3,933.
- In 2024, it was $3,945.
The year-to-year increases were not uniform. Spending rose 20.1% from 2021 to 2022, followed by an 8.1% increase from 2022 to 2023. The change from 2023 to 2024 was much smaller, at 0.3%. In 2024, food away from home represented 5.0% of all consumer-unit spending. These figures describe nominal spending and do not by themselves separate changes in prices from changes in the amount or type of food purchased. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer expenditures in 2024.
National spending, shares, and prices
USDA Economic Research Service food-dollar accounts provide a broader national view. Consumers, businesses, and governments spent $2.57 trillion on food in 2023, equal to $7,672 per person. Of that per-person total, $4,485 went to food away from home, up 12.0% from 2022, while $3,187 went to food at home, up 1.8%.
Food away from home made up 58.5% of nominal U.S. food spending in 2023. Food at home accounted for the remaining 41.5%. “Nominal” means these shares use dollars in the prices of the period rather than inflation-adjusted dollars, an important qualification when comparing spending across years.
| 2023 measure | Amount or share |
|---|---|
| Total U.S. food spending | $2.57 trillion |
| Food spending per person | $7,672 |
| Food away from home per person | $4,485 |
| Food at home per person | $3,187 |
| Share spent away from home | 58.5% |
| Share spent at home | 41.5% |
Food accounted for 11.2% of U.S. disposable personal income in 2023. Food away from home absorbed 5.9%, up from 5.6% in 2022, while food at home absorbed 5.3%, down from 5.6%. The two categories therefore moved in opposite directions as shares of disposable income.
Prices were also a major part of the 2023 change. Food-away-from-home prices rose an average 7.1%. After adjusting for inflation, monthly food-away-from-home spending still rose an average 3.0%. The nominal increase consequently reflects both higher prices and increased inflation-adjusted spending. USDA Economic Research Service, U.S. Consumers Increased Spending on Food Away From Home in 2023, Driving Overall Food Spending Growth.
What adults report about restaurant visits
USDA’s Flexible Consumer Behavior Survey captures reported behavior across specific survey periods. For 2017–March 2020, about 93% of U.S. adults said they had bought food from a fast-food restaurant during the previous 12 months. About 83% said they had eaten in or gotten takeout from a sit-down restaurant during that period. These are annual-recall measures, not counts of visits per person.
For a shorter reference period, adults reported an average of 3.7 food-away-from-home meals in the previous seven days during 2017–March 2020. The comparable average was 4.0 meals in 2007–2008. The survey periods and estimates should be read as reported meal frequencies rather than a complete register of restaurant transactions.
The same research examined nutrition information on menus. Among adults at their last visit, the share who saw nutrition information on a fast-food menu rose from 20% in 2007–2008 to 40% in 2017–March 2020. For sit-down menus, the share rose from 16% to 35% across those periods.
Seeing information did not mean every diner used it. Among adults who saw fast-food nutrition information, 40% said they used it to decide what to buy in 2007–2008, compared with 43% in 2017–March 2020. Among those who saw sit-down menu information, the corresponding figures were 53% and 43%. These results describe the surveyed adults who encountered menu information; they are not percentages of all restaurant customers. USDA Economic Research Service, Food Consumption & Demand – Flexible Consumer Behavior Survey.
Adult fast-food habits by age, sex, race, and income
CDC data for 2013–2016 found that 36.6% of U.S. adults consumed fast food on a given day. Age was associated with a clear difference: the rate was 44.9% among adults ages 20–39, 37.7% among adults ages 40–59, and 24.1% among adults age 60 and older.
The overall rate was 37.9% among adult men and 35.4% among adult women. Within the reported racial and ethnic categories for women, fast-food consumption was 42.9% for non-Hispanic Black women, 36.3% for non-Hispanic White women, 35.8% for Hispanic women, and 30.4% for non-Hispanic Asian women. These subgroup estimates should not be generalized beyond the populations and definitions used in the CDC analysis.
The same measure also varied by family income relative to the federal poverty level:
- 31.7% among adults at or below 130% of the federal poverty level.
- 36.4% among adults above 130% through 350% of the federal poverty level.
- 42.0% among adults above 350% of the federal poverty level.
Among adults who consumed fast food, 43.7% reported lunch and 42.0% reported dinner as the eating occasion. The figures identify the occasions represented in the survey and do not establish why people chose fast food or whether the meals were eaten in a restaurant, taken away, or consumed elsewhere. CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Fast Food Consumption Among Adults in the United States, 2013–2016.
Children and adolescents
More recent CDC estimates describe youth ages 2–19 during August 2021–August 2023. On a given day, 30.1% consumed fast food. Across all youth in this age range, fast food supplied an average 11.4% of daily calories.
Age mattered: the mean fast-food calorie share was 8.5% for children ages 2–11 and 14.6% for adolescents ages 12–19. By sex, the mean share was 10.7% for boys and 12.1% for girls.
The distribution shows why the overall mean does not describe every young person. On the reported day, 69.9% of youth consumed no fast food. Another 9.5% obtained more than 0% but less than 25% of daily calories from fast food, 12.7% obtained 25%–50%, and 7.9% obtained more than 50%.
The youth calorie share also changed across survey periods. It was 13.7% in 2013–2014, 13.1% in 2015–2016, 14.9% in 2017–March 2020, and 11.4% in August 2021–August 2023. These are separate measurement periods, and the latest estimate should not be treated as a timeless value for every year or every child. CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Fast-food Intake Among Children and Adolescents in the United States, August 2021–August 2023.
The long-run role of restaurants
USDA food-consumption research places current dining patterns in a longer historical context. Average reported U.S. calorie intake rose from 1,807 calories per person per day in 1977–1978 to 2,093 in 2017–2018. Over a similar span, fast food’s share of U.S. food energy rose from 5.9% in 1977 to 16.3% in 2018.
The broader restaurant category also gained share. Restaurants represented 3.3% of U.S. food energy in 1977 and 7.8% in 2018, more than doubling over the period. Fast food and restaurants are related but not identical measures, so their percentages should not be added together.
Finally, an USDA Economic Research Service analysis using data from 2007–2008 through 2017–March 2020 found that replacing a meal prepared at home with a food-away-from-home meal was associated with about 134 additional daily calories among adults. This is an association from the analysis, not a claim that every restaurant meal produces the same calorie difference or that the substitution alone proves causation. USDA Economic Research Service, Food Consumption, Nutrient Intakes, and Diet Quality – Summary Findings; USDA Economic Research Service, Food Consumption & Demand – Flexible Consumer Behavior Survey.