Image Source: UnsplashNews reports proclaimed that food costs had jumped. One headline: “It’s Been 30 Years Since Food Ate Up This Much of Your Income.” Another headline: “Americans have not spent this much of their incomes on food since the Gulf War.” But the truth is that consumers are choosing higher-cost options. It’s as if people gave up their Hyundais for Bentleys, and then newspapers wrote that it costs more to drive to work.The underlying data were reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, showing spending through 2022. And yes, total food expenditures as a share of disposable personal income hit an all-time high in 2022. (More recent data are not available yet.)Consider, however, spending on food at home versus food away from home. Over the last ten years, we consumers have increased our food away from home, meaning restaurants and fast food. Spending for food at home rose 41% while spending for food away from home jumped 78%.Everyone knows eating out usually costs more than eating at home. And restaurant inflation ran higher than grocery store inflation over the past 10 years. That was largely due to higher labor costs, which rose much faster than food costs. But despite the higher prices, consumers chose to do more eating out. Actual expenditures for food away from home grew much more than would have been expected based solely on the inflation differences.Diving into the food at-home spending, guess which category rose the fastest. Pause a moment and think about it. The answer is home delivery. Total food-at-home spending over the last 10 years rose 47%, but home delivery spending rose nearly 400%. Surprisingly, the big increases began well before the pandemic, in 2013. That was when DoorDash began service. UberEats started up a year later. And getting cooked food delivered to your door costs more than cooking yourself. That’s news?The two biggest food spending trends, then, were eating out more and ordering food to be delivered to homes. Rather than pitying the poor consumer who has to pay more for food, we should be celebrating the consumers who are able to spend more for the convenience of not cooking their own meals. Whether one thinks that home-cooked is better, it’s certainly good when we can afford convenience.More By This Author:Consumers Will Keep On Spending In 2024AI Market Structure In The Future: Few Engines, Many ApplicationsOzempic Is Not Bad For Business Despite Snack Food Suppression