Study: 15 percent eat fast-food dinner
Published: Aug. 8, 2007 at 6:35 PM
LOS ANGELES, Calif., Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Just 15 percent of U.S. families eat dinners of takeout or fast-food only, a study found, despite the image suggested by the best-seller "Fast Food Nation.”
Study author Margaret Beck of the University of California, Los Angeles, videotaped the dinner routines at home for four days of 32 families with two working parents in Los Angeles from 2002 to 2005.
Of the 64 weeknight dinners Beck observed, 70 percent were completely home-cooked, but not necessarily from scratch. Almost all the home-cooked meals included some sort of packaged convenience food.
Stir-fry mixes, potstickers, chicken dishes and barbecued ribs were among the most popular products, along with canned or frozen vegetables, specialty breads, canned soup and commercial pasta sauce.
Beck did not consider dried pasta and tortillas to be convenience foods, but she did count bagged salads and hot dogs.
Meals took an average of 52 minutes to prepare, and dinner didn’t get on the table an faster in homes that favored convenience foods.
Eighty percent of the mothers in the homes observed did the cooking.
The findings are published in the British Food Journal.
Study author Margaret Beck of the University of California, Los Angeles, videotaped the dinner routines at home for four days of 32 families with two working parents in Los Angeles from 2002 to 2005.
Of the 64 weeknight dinners Beck observed, 70 percent were completely home-cooked, but not necessarily from scratch. Almost all the home-cooked meals included some sort of packaged convenience food.
Stir-fry mixes, potstickers, chicken dishes and barbecued ribs were among the most popular products, along with canned or frozen vegetables, specialty breads, canned soup and commercial pasta sauce.
Beck did not consider dried pasta and tortillas to be convenience foods, but she did count bagged salads and hot dogs.
Meals took an average of 52 minutes to prepare, and dinner didn’t get on the table an faster in homes that favored convenience foods.
Eighty percent of the mothers in the homes observed did the cooking.
The findings are published in the British Food Journal.
© 2007 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
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