The primary objective of this thesis was to analyze food expenditure patterns of the Hispanic population in the United States during the period 1994-1996. Two specific studies were conducted to accomplish this objective. In the first study, the expenditure patterns for total food (TF), food eaten at home (FAH) and food eaten away from home (FAFH) were examined. Cross sectional data were utilized to investigate how Hispanic households allocate their food budget in response to income and household size through their respective expenditure elasticities, and more specifically, how they allocate food expenditures between food eaten at home and food eaten away from home.