Food's relationship to the overall CPI?

"In the U.S. counts food as only 8% of the CPI index. Whereas, it counts for about 10% in the United Kingdom, about 15% in the rest of Europe and more than 18% in Japan."

Now here's where things get really interesting. If you consider the proportion of U.S. household spending on food by income quintile, all but the top 20% of earners spend at least 20% of their paychecks on food.

Hence, what the weighting versus the reality are very different. This means that for 80% of the country's populace, the CPI weightings are dramatically understates what the average American is experiencing in terms of their inflation versus the official CPI measure.