Of the fifty foods used by the greatest number of elderly households in the USDA 1977 - 78 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, 62 percent were nonconvenience foods. The percentages of nonconvenience and of basic, complex and manufactured convenience food classes reported most frequently by elderly households were similar to the percentages of each class reported by all households in the survey. The greatest share of the food dollar was allocated to nonconvenience foods by nonwhite female meal planners in the South or West in seasons other than winter. Nonconvenience foods supplied an average of 58 percent of the food energy and of most other nutrients to the household food supply. Comparison of the nutrient contribution of each food class relative to the energy supplied indicated complex convenience foods had lower nutrient densities (nutrients per 1,000 kilocalories) than did the other food classes. As the use of complex convenience foods, those foods most commonly thought of as convenience foods, increased, the nutrients per person in the household food supply decreased. / M. S.