nyt: more people are cooking

[karla cook]

http://bittman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/wait-so-people-are-cooking/

"... a survey released yesterday by the anti-childhood hunger
organization Share Our Strength gives us reason to believe that low-
and middle-income Americans are cooking more than many of us thought.


The survey, commissioned by Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters
program, and conducted by APCO Insight, is called “It’s Dinnertime: A
Report on Low-Income Families’ Efforts to Plan, Shop for and Cook
Healthy Meals.” It polled 1,500 low- and middle-income families from
across the United States (low-income was defined as less than 185
percent of the poverty line, or less than $42,000 combined income a
year based on family size, and middle-income was defined as between
185 and 250 percent of the poverty line, less than $60,000). Thirty-
one percent of the respondent families received SNAP benefits, and a
high rate of food insecurity was reported among those surveyed.

The survey clearly wasn’t focused on the poorest Americans, and
families at or below the poverty line are likely to follow different
patterns, but that doesn’t make the results less encouraging:

Seventy-eight percent of families reported cooking and eating dinner
at home five or more nights a week (on average they reported eating
takeout or at a restaurant less than once a week.) The typical
breakdown of a week included four dinners made from scratch, two made
at least in part from packaged foods like boxed macaroni and cheese,
or boxed flavored rice, and one fast food dinner. Note this: the lower
a family’s income, the more they cooked from scratch.
..."