Time to eat: household production under increasing income inequality

income and time prices affect time and goods inputs into eating. Both inputs increase with income, and higher time prices reduce time inputs. Between 1985 and 2003 the goods intensity of eating increased, especially lower in the income distribution, and average time inputs dropped, particularly time spent shopping, preparing, and cleaning up after meals. The results are consistent with relatively difficult goods-time substitution in eating that becomes more difficult as household production expands. Key words: household production, inequality, time use. There are two activities that every person must do to survive: eat and sleep. While the latter is amenable to economic analysis (see Biddle and Hamermesh 1990), with the exception of an infrequent purchase of bedding the produc-tion of sleep is a decision solely about time use. Not so for eating, which requires deci-sions about money expenditures on the cap-ital required to engage in this activity and o