American consumers are inching ever closer to a dining watershed. The continued growing popularity of eating away from home has brought Americans to the verge of spending as much on food away from home as they do on food prepared at home. In 1970, Americans spent 34 percent of their food dollars away from home. Today, the figure is about 46 percent. This is part of a wealth of new information on America's away-from-home food habits in this report. In addition to examining general trends on spending in restaurants and other commercial eating places, it is the first USDA publication to offer detailed statistics on the types of eating places frequented, the kinds of foods consumed, and whether the food constituted a snack or a meal.