Eating out is less nutritious than eating at home. Everyone knows that, right? But with so little time to plan and prepare nutritious, home-cooked meals, perhaps restaurants are providing us with the salads and side dishes our mother begged us to eat.
According to a USDA study, restaurant food (including sit-down and fast-food restaurants, carry-outs, and home deliveries) supplied 32 percent of our caloric intake in 2005-08, nearly double the 18 percent of 1977-78. Restaurant food was higher in saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol than food prepared at home. But--despite the growing share of calories supplied by restaurant meals--our consumption of fat has declined over the years. So maybe restaurants aren't all that bad, and it could be they will get better at providing us with a more varied (and nutritious) diet than we can make for ourselves at home.
Source: USDA, Economic Research Service, Nutritional Quality of Food Prepared at Home and Away from Home, 1977-2008
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