What makes Americans spend nearly half their food dollars on meals away from home The answers lie in the wa) Americans live today. During the first few decades of the twentieth century, canned and other convenience foods freed the family cook from full-time duty at the kitchen range. Then, in the 1900s, work in the wartime defense plants took more women out of the home that ever before, setting the pattern of the working wife and mother. Unless family members pitch in with food preparation, women ,are not fully liberated from that chore. It’s easier to pick up a bucket of fried chicken on the way home from work or take the family out for pizzas oi burgers than to start opening cans or heating up frozen dinners after a long, hard day. Also nowadays, the rising divorce rate means that there are more single working parents with children to feed. And many young adults and elderly people as well as unmarried and divorced mature people, live alone rather than as a part of a family unit and don’t want to bothei cooking for one. Fast food is appealing because it is fast, it doesn’t require any dressing up, it offers a "fun" break in the daily routine, and the outlay of money seems small. It can be eaten in the car--sometimes picked up at a drive-in window without even getting out--or on the run. Even if it is brought home to eat, there will never be any dirty dishes ta wash because of the handy disposable wrappings. Children, especially, love fast food because it’s finger food, no struggling with knives and forks, no annoying instructions from adults about table manners. The expression "pitch in with" (Para. 2) probably means______