Love Food But Hate Spending Too Much Money On It? Here Are The Cities For You

Every year, in acknowledgement of World Food Day (today), WalletHub, a financial information site, releases its list of America's "Best and Worst Foodie [their word, not ours] Cities for Your Wallet."

To obtain their rankings, the site asked a panel of experts, mostly nutrition specialists (including Daily Meal Council member Marion Nestle) to analyze the nation's 150 most populated cities across two criteria: affordability and "diversity, accessibility & quality." Among the metrics considered were the cost of groceries and of wine and beer, the prevalence of affordable restaurants with high ratings, the number of total restaurants and of food trucks per 100,000 inhabitants, and the number of grocery stores, butcher shops, food festivals, and more.

The number one city? Probably not surprisingly, the contemporary and artisanal food capital of Portland, Oregon. Number two, however, was the fantasyland of Orlando. Next up, in order, were San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle, Cincinnati, Santa Rosa (in California's wine-rich Sonoma County), and Miami.

Two of the bottom three were in Southern California's so-called Inland Empire: Fontana and Moreno Valley (the other member of the trio was North Las Vegas).

New York City came in at number 30, beating out Los Angeles at number 35.

A few specific statistics: Cost of groceries: lowest, Laredo, Texas; highest, Honolulu. Most restaurants per capita: San Francisco. Fewest: Laredo. Most coffee shops per capita, no, not Seattle (which was number two) but San Francisco again; fewest, Laredo. Most ice cream and frozen yogurt shops per capita, Orlando; fewest, Detroit.

For the complete rankings, click here.