Timothy Taylor finds a USDA report, which says that
Between 1977-78 and 2005-08, U.S. consumption of food prepared away from home increased from 18 to 32 percent of total calories.
Since 1970, the proportion of food spending that is spent on eating out has increased from about 25 percent to about 43 percent.
Taylor and the USDA focus on the consequences for obesity. I would add that this trend will increase measured GDP. When you spend time preparing a meal at home, it does not count as GDP. When you eat out, the time spent preparing the meal does count as GDP.
I believe that this represents a legitimate increase in GDP. My comparative advantage is not in food preparation. The same is true for most people. Spending less time in the kitchen represents economic progress.
Although I eat out much less than most people, I rarely spend more than 20 minutes preparing a meal. That means that I eat a lot of prepared foods. I do think that most meals that you eat at home have a higher ratio of nutrients to calories than most meals that you eat outside the home. Perhaps that will change at some point.
” I do think that most meals that you eat at home have a higher ratio of nutrients to calories than most meals that you eat outside the home.”
There will be confounding factors. There is quite a movement, based on some evidence, that it’s better for one’s weight as well as one’s general health to eat foods with the lowest possible amount of “industrial adulteration.” For example, eat oranges rather than drink orange juice. Pick orange juice over “orange flavored stuff”. Etc.
There has emerged a set of grocery store services (at least where I live) where such things as pre-mixed pre-washed (but otherwise “raw” and unadulterated) salads, cut fruit, etc. are very easily available. These add to GDP because I’m in effect paying some specialist to cut and mix the fruit or cut and mix the salad. The time to prepare such foods can be effectively zero (remove top from container, eat contents.)
But these are signs of wealth – I can afford to buy these things, there’s enough of a market to make them viable services, and so on.
So the relative quality of home food may go up for the well off, and down for the not-so-well-off (because of what is available, what they can afford, etc.)
Excellent observation. In the UK at least, the nutritional quality of prepackaged meals in supermarkets has improved dramatically over the past decade. I sense the shift is happening in the fast food/restaurant space also, though perhaps less obviously.
A lot of it is an unsustainable division of labor. I think you may be onto something there.
I’m not saying well reverse course on net, but we may have to cut down on gluten, then well realize we overdid the gluten fears, etc.
More generally, economic activity does not imply prosperity. If division of labor is efficient, we all gain and measured economic acvitity is really increased prosperity and wealth. But lousy division of labor (I am too lazy to cook so I buy a pizza and play videogames) does not contribute to prosperity even though measured economic activity might be high.
I figure recessions are periods in which we collectively realized that a lot of measured economic activity was not efficient, wealth was illusory, and we scramble to find better division of labor.
I apologize if this is just a crude approximation of your PSST theory, Dr. Kling.