“This is what my mom used to make”, “My grandma would always make this”. . These statements are often heard.  .As per our culture our eating habits are established by tradition and the principles of nutrition are assumed rather then discussed.   The family meal once was a sacred institution and is being gradually eroded.

Current Facts: Eating habits

• $1.6 billion: Restaurant-industry sales on a typical day in 2010.
  
  
• $2,698: Average household expenditure for food away from home in 2008.
  
  
• 40 percent of adults agree that purchasing meals from restaurants and take-out and delivery places makes them more productive in their day-to-day life.
  
  
• 73 percent of adults say they try to eat healthier now at restaurants than they did two years ago.
  
  
• 57 percent of adults say they are likely to make a restaurant choice based on how much a restaurant supports charitable activities and the local community.
  
  
• 78 percent of adults say they would like to receive restaurant gift cards or certificates on gift occasions.
  
  
• 52 percent of adults say they would be more likely to patronize a restaurant if it offered a customer loyalty and reward program.
  
  
• 56 percent of adults say they are more likely to visit a restaurant that offers food grown or raised in an organic or environmentally friendly way.
  
  
• 78 percent of adults agree that going out to a restaurant with family or friends gives them an opportunity to socialize and is a better way to make use of their leisure time than cooking and cleaning up.
  

Food Facts

The aggregate food supply in 2000 provided 3,800 calories per person per day2.  Of that 3,800 calories, USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) estimates that roughly 1,100 calories were lost to spoilage, plate waste, and cooking and other losses, putting dietary intake of calories in 2000 at just under 2,700 calories per person per day.

• In 2000, Americans drank an average of 38 percent less milk and ate nearly four times as much cheese (excluding cottage,pot, and baker’s cheese) as in the 1950s
  
  
• Consumption of beverage milk declined from an annual average of 36 gallons per person in the 1950s to less than 23 gallons in  2000
  
  
• Big increase in eating away from home. Especially at fast-food places and in consumption of salty snack foods favoured.
  
  
• Whole milk represented 92 percent of all beverage milk (plain, flavored, and buttermilk) in the 1950s, but its share dropped to 36 percent in 2000
  
  
• Americans have become conspicuous consumers of sugar and sweet-tasting foods and beverages. Per capita consumption of caloric sweeteners (dryweight basis)—mainly sucrose (table sugar made from cane and beets) and corn sweeteners (notably high-fructose corn syrup, or HFCS)—increased 43 pounds, or 39 percent, between 1950-59 and 2000.

Eating Habits and Implications

“This is what my mom used to make”, “My grandma would always make this”. . These statements are often heard.  .As per our culture our eating habits are established by tradition and the principles of nutrition are assumed rather then discussed.   The family meal once was a sacred institution and is being gradually eroded.

• Obesity
  
  According to the National Center for Health Statistics, an astounding
  
  
  • 62 percent of adult Americans were overweight in 2000, up from 46 percent in 1980.
    
    
  • 27 percent of adults were so far overweight that they were classified as obese (at least 30 pounds above their healthy weight)—twice the percentage classified as such in 1960.
    
    
  • Alarmingly, an upward trend in obesity is also occurring for U.S. children.
  
  

• General Health
  
  

  In January 1977, the Senate Select Committee published the "Dietary Goals for the United States" recommending that all Americans reduce their fat, saturated fat and cholesterol consumption, and increase their carbohydrate consumption to 55-60% of daily calories.

• "Most all of the health problems underlying the leading causes of death in the United States could be modified by improvements in diet."
  
  
• Dr. C. Edith Weir, Assistant Director, Human Nutrition Research Division,
  Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture