Family meals remain closely connected to home cooking, but the available U.S. measures show several different dimensions of the routine: how often people eat together, how long food preparation takes, where meals happen, and how children receive food. The statistics below span 2007–08 through 2025, so each measurement period and population is identified.
Contents
- How often families eat together
- Time spent preparing family meals
- Home meals and food away from home
- Children’s meals, snacks, and school food
- Where and when people eat
- Grocery shopping and household time
How often families eat together
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service reported a modest increase in family meals among households with working-age adults and children younger than 17. Family meals rose from 5.8 per week in 2007–08 to 6.3 per week in 2009–10. In the same households, family meals prepared at home rose from 5.4 to 5.8 per week over that period. These figures come from the ERS analysis “More family meals prepared at home following the 2007-09 recession”.
Among all working-age adults in multiperson households, family meals prepared at home increased from 5.3 to 5.7 per week between 2007–08 and 2009–10. This is a household-pattern measure from that period, not a current estimate of every U.S. family’s routine.
The 2007–08 ERS survey also showed a relationship between reported diet-quality ratings and eating together. People who rated their diet quality excellent reported eating together 7.6 times per week. The corresponding figures were 7.0 times for those rating their diet very good, 6.0 for good, 5.2 for fair, and 4.6 for poor. People rating their diet quality excellent reported cooking and eating together at home 7.2 times per week. The source is How Americans Rate Their Diet Quality: An Increasingly Realistic Perspective. These results describe an association between survey responses; they do not establish that eating together caused a particular diet-quality rating.
| 2007–08 diet-quality rating | Eating together per week |
|---|---|
| Excellent | 7.6 |
| Very good | 7.0 |
| Good | 6.0 |
| Fair | 5.2 |
| Poor | 4.6 |
Time spent preparing family meals
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that U.S. people age 15 and over spent an average of 0.70 hours per weekday on food preparation and cleanup in 2025. On an average weekend day or holiday, the figure was 0.74 hours. In percentage terms, food preparation and cleanup engaged 66.2% of people on an average weekday and 62.9% on an average weekend day or holiday. These are population averages from BLS Table 2, 2025 annual averages, so they include people who did not perform the activity on the measured day.
Among people who did prepare food or clean up, the activity lasted 1.06 hours on an average weekday in 2025. It lasted 1.18 hours on an average weekend day or holiday. The difference between the all-person average and the participant average matters: the first describes time distributed across the full population, while the second describes the average duration for people who engaged in the activity.
Parents’ wider household schedules also put meal preparation in context. In 2021, parents whose youngest household child was under 6 spent 2.01 hours per day on household activities. Parents whose youngest child was 6 to 12 spent 2.16 hours, while parents whose youngest child was 13 to 17 spent 1.97 hours. Parents with a youngest child under 6 spent 1.17 hours per day eating and drinking. The source is the BLS summary How parents used their time in 2021. Household activities and eating and drinking are broader categories than cooking alone.
Home meals and food away from home
The ERS Flexible Consumer Behavior Survey provides two time points for food away from home. U.S. adults reported an average of 4.0 food-away-from-home meals in the previous seven days in 2007–08. They reported 3.7 such meals in the period from 2017 through March 2020. The survey periods are not a continuous annual series, and the later period ends in March 2020. The source is Food Consumption & Demand: Flexible Consumer Behavior Survey.
Other ready-to-eat patterns moved in different directions. U.S. adults consumed ready-to-eat foods an average of 1.9 times in the previous 30 days in 2007–08, compared with 2.2 times in 2017–March 2020. Frozen meals or pizzas averaged 2.7 times in the previous 30 days in 2007–08 and 2.4 times in 2017–March 2020.
| Measure among U.S. adults | 2007–08 | 2017–March 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Food-away-from-home meals, previous 7 days | 4.0 | 3.7 |
| Ready-to-eat foods, previous 30 days | 1.9 | 2.2 |
| Frozen meals or pizzas, previous 30 days | 2.7 | 2.4 |
Work location was also associated with weekday food routines in 2017–18. Prime working-age adults working from home prepared food on 75% of average weekdays, compared with 63% for those working away from home. Those working from home spent 41 minutes preparing food on an average weekday, compared with 30 minutes for those working away from home. They also spent 49 minutes eating at home, compared with 27 minutes among those working away from home. The ERS source is People spent more time preparing food and eating at home when working from home, 2017–18. These are comparisons for the specified groups and period, not a forecast of current remote-work behavior.
Children’s meals, snacks, and school food
For children aged 1–4, NHANES 2009–2014 recorded an average of 2.9 meals and 2.4 snacks per day. Among children in that age group who received anything from childcare, childcare supplied 36.2% of their foods and drinks, while stores supplied 53.2%. For children who received no food from childcare, stores supplied 84.9% of foods and drinks. The source is the CDC publication Number of Eating Occasions and Source of Foods and Drinks Among Young Children in the United States. The childcare comparisons apply only to the groups described; they should not be read as the share for all children aged 1–4.
School meals were an important reported source for older children and adolescents in 2021. Among U.S. children and adolescents aged 5–17, 51.6% received free or reduced-cost school breakfasts or lunches during the previous 12 months. The measure covers the previous year, rather than a single school day.
Reported receipt varied by race and Hispanic ethnicity. The figures were 66.2% for non-Hispanic Black children and adolescents, 64.4% for Hispanic children and adolescents, 42.7% for non-Hispanic White children and adolescents, and 30.9% for non-Hispanic Asian children and adolescents. By family income, 75.9% of children and adolescents in families below 185% of the federal poverty level received free or reduced-cost school meals, compared with 38.7% in families at or above 185% of that level. These 2021 estimates are from the CDC National Health Interview Survey QuickStats.
Where and when people eat
In 2023, U.S. people age 15 and over spent 66.2 minutes per day eating and drinking as a primary activity. They spent another 16.4 minutes eating as a secondary activity, for 82.5 minutes in total. The primary-activity and secondary-activity measures separate eating as the main activity from eating while doing something else.
For primary eating and drinking, the own home or yard accounted for 76.3% of named places. The workplace accounted for 10.1%, and restaurants or bars accounted for 6.9%. For secondary eating, the own home or yard accounted for 58.2% of named places. Watching television and movies accompanied 22.8% of secondary eating occasions, while work in the main job accompanied 20.4%. These 2023 results appear in the ERS Eating and Health Module (ATUS) summary findings.
The place figures describe named places and the activity figures distinguish primary from secondary eating. They therefore provide context about eating routines without proving that every meal eaten at home was prepared from scratch or shared with other household members.
Grocery shopping and household time
Food planning begins before preparation. In 2023, 52.6% of U.S. people age 15 and over said they usually did a lot or all of their household grocery shopping. Another 32.3% said they did a little or some. Among people who did at least a little household grocery shopping, 19.5% bought groceries online at least once in the previous 30 days. These measures come from the same ERS Eating and Health Module summary.
BLS 2025 annual averages show 1.88 hours per weekday on household activities and 2.26 hours per weekend day or holiday. People spent 0.67 hours per weekday purchasing goods and services and 0.74 hours per weekend day or holiday on that category. Purchasing goods and services is broader than groceries, so it should not be treated as grocery-shopping time alone. The figures are reported in BLS Table 2.
Parents’ paid-work schedules varied by the age of the youngest child in 2021. Parents whose youngest household child was under 6 spent 4.34 hours per day on work and work-related activities. The figure was 4.98 hours for parents whose youngest child was 6 to 12 and 5.34 hours for parents whose youngest child was 13 to 17. These estimates, from How parents used their time in 2021, describe average daily time for the specified parent groups and do not isolate time available for cooking.
Taken together, the measures show why family-meal routines are not captured by one number. The historical family-meal estimates measure weekly shared eating, the BLS estimates measure activity time, the child measures describe food sources and school-meal receipt, and the 2023 eating-location figures describe where and how eating occurs. Keeping those definitions and periods separate makes the statistics useful for planning home-cooking routines without treating unlike measures as interchangeable.