Barry Ritholtz notes that in addition to all the various hedonic ajustments, the CPI says that the average US consumer spends only 7.66% of income on food, as opposed to the numbers of 10% for the UK, 15% for the rest of Europe, and 18% for Japan, which is patently absurd.

Ritholtz states that the 4 bottom quintiles spend closer to 20%, which sounds about right.

According to Wiki, the median family income in the US in 2006 was 48,201.00, so let’s round to 50K.

8% of 50K would be $4,000, 20% of 50K would be $10,000. Assuming 3 meals a day and a 4 menber family over 50 weeks, we get $0.95 and $2.38 per meal respectively. The former is living exclusively on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

The fact is that when things like snacks, fresh vegetables, etc. are factored in, the per food cost probably gets closer to $5.00/meal for total food cost for a family of 4.