>"I don't have the stats in front of me, but I'm certain the relative
>price of food and its share of consumption expenditures has been
>falling for a very long time. So Pollan's "cheap food" explanation
>would have to contend with that."
>
>Frankly, I want to see that data. Prices where I am have been going
>up...especially in the last three years.
I haven't updated my spreadsheet in a while, but according to the BLS's Consumer Expenditure Survey (which is the raw material for what most marketers rely on), households spent 15.9% of after-tax income on food in 1984, and 13.9% in 2000. I don't have pre-84 data here, but I do know it was about 33% in the 1950s. I think it's been more of a steady decline than a sudden drop-off in the Butz era.
Doug