The charts below show the percentage of food budget the average family spent on restaurant meals in different years. The graph shows the number of meals eaten in fast food restaurants and sit-down restaurants.

The pie chart illustrates the proportion of average family expenditure on

food

over a 30-year period,

while

the line graph compares the number of

meals

served in fast

food

restaurants

and sit-down

restaurants

annually from 1970 to 2000.

Overall

, there was an increased tendency for families to dine at

restaurants

, and home-cooked

meals

were no longer dominant in family

meals

.

Moreover

, it is apparent that fast

food

meals

were preferred

at the end

of the period. To be more specific, home cooking was still the most popular way in 1970, as an average family spent 90% of their total

food

budget on home-cooked

food

while

only one-tenth of the money was spent on

restaurants

.

However

, the ratio of home-cooked

meals

dropped continuously,

whereas

the opposite happened to eat out at

restaurants

throughout the years. In 2000, there was no difference between the two of them, both comprised half of the total

food

spending of a family. Moving to the line graph, the number of

meals

served in both fast

food

and sitdown

restaurants

started at 20 in 1970 and increased to 28 and 32 respectively.

Although

both showed a steady rise over time, the number of fast

food

meals

demonstrated a dramatic escalation, more than tripling to around 85%, doubling that of sit-down

restaurants

in the final year.