Religion can shape what happens before a meal, during family conversation, and when people share food across religious boundaries. Recent Pew Research Center surveys show substantial differences by affiliation, age, setting and country. The U.S. adult figures come from July 17, 2023-March 4, 2024; the U.S. teen figures come from March 29-April 14, 2019; and the India figures come from October 2019-March 2020.
Table of contents
- Mealtime prayer among U.S. adults
- What U.S. teenagers report at family meals
- Scripture, conversation and shared faith
- Food boundaries at shared meals in India
- Prayer before public-school lunch
- Enjoyment and parental influence
Mealtime prayer among U.S. adults
In the Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, 33% of U.S. adults said they always or often say grace or pray before meals. The figure was 44% among religiously affiliated adults, compared with 8% among religiously unaffiliated adults. These are measures of reported frequency, not a count of every meal or a measure of how long the prayer lasts. Source: Pew Research Center, “Prayer, reading scripture & other religious practices among Americans”, July 17, 2023-March 4, 2024.
The affiliation differences were wide:
| U.S. adult group | Always or often say grace or pray before meals |
|---|---|
| Evangelical Protestant | 58% |
| Muslim | 54% |
| Protestant overall | 51% |
| Historically Black Protestant | 67% |
| Latter-day Saint | 68% |
| Orthodox Christian | 41% |
| Christian overall | 46% |
| Catholic | 34% |
| Mainline Protestant | 29% |
| Hindu | 26% |
| Other religions | 24% |
| Jewish | 17% |
| Buddhist | 12% |
| Religiously unaffiliated | 8% |
| Agnostic | 2% |
| Atheist | 1% |
The categories are not interchangeable. “Christian overall,” “Protestant overall” and individual Protestant traditions describe different groupings, while “religiously unaffiliated” includes more specific categories such as atheist, agnostic and people who say they are nothing in particular. In the same survey, 12% of U.S. adults who described themselves as “nothing in particular” always or often prayed or said grace before meals. Source: Pew Research Center, July 17, 2023-March 4, 2024.
These results place mealtime prayer within a broader pattern of religious identity. The highest reported levels in this dataset were among Latter-day Saint adults at 68% and historically Black Protestant adults at 67%. The lowest were among atheist adults at 1% and agnostic adults at 2%. The survey does not establish why these differences occur, so the figures should be read as comparisons of reported practice rather than explanations of behavior.
What U.S. teenagers report at family meals
The 2019 Pew Research Center parent-teen survey asked U.S. teenagers about practices in their families. Fifty-four percent said their family ever says grace or prays before family meals. Among teenagers whose families say grace, 56% said it happens often, 34% said sometimes and 10% said rarely. The frequency percentages apply to the subgroup whose families say grace; they should not be treated as percentages of all U.S. teenagers. Source: Pew Research Center, 2019 Survey Final Topline, March 29-April 14, 2019.
Reported family practice also varied among teenagers from major Christian traditions. At least sometimes saying grace before family meals was reported by 80% of evangelical Protestant teens, 51% of mainline Protestant teens and 42% of Catholic teens. Source: Pew Research Center, “Family religious practices in the U.S.”, March 29-April 14, 2019.
The adult and teen measures are related but not identical. The adult study asks adults whether they themselves always or often pray or say grace. The teen study asks whether the family ever does so, then asks frequency among families that do. One is an adult personal-practice measure; the other is a family-context measure reported by teenagers.
Scripture, conversation and shared faith
Family religious practice extends beyond the meal itself. Twenty-nine percent of U.S. teenagers said their family ever reads religious scripture together, while 71% said their family does not. Among teenagers whose families read scripture together, 43% said it happens often, 45% said sometimes and 11% said rarely. Source: Pew Research Center, 2019 Survey Final Topline, March 29-April 14, 2019.
Forty-two percent of U.S. teenagers said they do other religious things with their family besides saying grace and reading scripture. The survey also captured family conversations about religion: 19% said they often talk about religion with their family, 40% said sometimes, 28% said rarely and 12% said never. Source: Pew Research Center, 2019 Survey Final Topline, March 29-April 14, 2019.
The conversation figures describe frequency categories, not the number of conversations or their subject matter. Similarly, “other religious things” is a broad survey category and does not specify a particular activity. Together, the measures show several distinct dimensions of family faith practice: a ritual before eating, shared scripture reading, other activities and direct discussion.
Because these U.S. teen results were collected in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, they should not be presented as a current post-pandemic trend. They are a historical snapshot of reported family practice during March 29-April 14, 2019, and the source does not provide a newer comparison in the figures used here.
Food boundaries at shared meals in India
Religious meal practices can involve decisions about whether to eat in another person’s home or attend a function hosted by people with different food rules. Pew Research Center’s India survey, fielded October 2019-March 2020, found that 46% of Indian Hindus would eat in the home of someone whose religion has different food rules. Forty-seven percent would eat at a function hosted by people whose religion has different food rules. Source: Pew Research Center, “Views of religion and food in India”, October 2019-March 2020.
Among Indian Sikhs, 45% would eat in such a home and 47% would eat at such a function. About 25% of Indian Jains would eat in a home or at a function hosted by people with different religious food rules. The source reports that about 60% or more of Indian Christians and about 60% or more of Indian Muslims would do so in a home or at a function. Those approximate values should remain approximate rather than being converted into exact percentages.
Regional differences also appear in the India results. Sixty-six percent of Hindus in southern India would eat in the home of someone whose dietary rules differ from their own. This regional result is not the same population as the all-India Hindu figures, so it should not be used as a replacement for them. Source: Pew Research Center, “Views of religion and food in India”, October 2019-March 2020.
These figures measure willingness to eat in particular social settings, not whether respondents personally follow a religious dietary rule or whether a host’s food actually violates it. They also cover India, while the prayer and family-practice figures above cover the United States. The datasets should not be combined into a single international ranking or trend line.
Prayer before public-school lunch
The 2019 Pew Research Center detailed tables offer another setting: public-school lunch. Among religiously affiliated U.S. public-school teens, 26% often or sometimes prayed before eating lunch at school. The figure was 27% among Christian teens, 34% among Protestant teens, 39% among evangelical Protestant teens, 11% among mainline Protestant teens and 18% among Catholic teens. Source: Pew Research Center, “For a Lot of American Teens, Religion Is a Regular Part of the Public School Day”, March 29-April 14, 2019.
The same measure varied by sex and age among affiliated public-school teens. Twenty-eight percent of boys and 24% of girls often or sometimes prayed before lunch. By age, the figure was 23% for teens ages 13-14 and 28% for teens ages 15-17. Source: Pew Research Center detailed tables, March 29-April 14, 2019.
Public-school lunch is a different social environment from a family meal. The 26% affiliated-teen figure therefore should not be compared as though it were a second estimate of family grace. It describes prayer before eating at school and uses “often or sometimes,” whereas the family-meal survey asks whether the family ever says grace and then describes frequency among those families.
Enjoyment and parental influence
The 2019 teen survey also asked how young people felt about doing religious things with their family. Among U.S. teens who do religious things with their family, 27% said they enjoy them a lot, 51% said they enjoy them some, 18% said not much and 4% said not at all. Source: Pew Research Center, 2019 Survey Final Topline, March 29-April 14, 2019.
The same subgroup was asked whether it participates mainly because parents want it to. Sixteen percent said parents’ wishes influence them a lot, and 50% said they influence them some. These are not measures of opposition or agreement, and the supplied results do not report the remaining response categories. Source: Pew Research Center, 2019 Survey Final Topline, March 29-April 14, 2019.
The pattern is therefore mixed rather than one-dimensional: among teens who take part in family religious activities, the largest reported enjoyment category was “some” at 51%, while 27% reported enjoying them “a lot.” At the same time, parental preference was reported as influencing participation “a lot” by 16% and “some” by 50%. These results describe teenagers’ reported experiences in 2019 and do not establish whether enjoyment, parental influence, prayer or shared meals caused any other outcome.