respondents did not have any children living at home, which is a large portion of the sample. About
45% of the households reported having either 1 or 2 children living at their home.
3.2 African-American’s Consumption Behavior
Although there were few who eat out at least 2-3 times a week (about 4% of the respondents), a vast
majority (92.5%) eats out only once or twice a month. These results show that on the average African-
American eat out less frequently than the majority population. One of the determinants of this was the
amount of disposable income available to African-Americans compared to the white-Americans.
Earlier research by Brown and Lee (1986) showed that income was a significant factor in impacting
FAFH compared to FAH. We plan to examine this link in our objective 3. The study finds that for the
younger segment of the African-American population (18-30 years of age), their FAFH consumption
pattern was more closely linked to that of the overall population, including the white-Americans (Table
1). This shows that the gap between the majority and minority is closing, at least for the younger
generations, when it comes to FAFH.
When African-Americans went out for lunch, the most common type of food they selected were (Table
2, column 1) deli type (50.8% of the respondents selected this type of food), burger or sandwich
(47.5%), ethnic European (34.8%), fried chicken type (31.4%) and in a distant fifth was Middle Eastern
food (19.7%). Considering the prevalence of both Chinese and Mexican food everywhere in New
Jersey, it was surprising to find that both Asian food and Mexican food were ranked fifth and sixth,
respectively in terms of African-American consumers’ preference for food at lunch. Regarding African-
American consumers preference for food for dinner when eating out, the most common type of food
they selected were (Table 2, column 2) Italian, including pizza (44.1% of the respondents selected this