Every morning I drive by a local Dunkin Donut (it’s next to the gym) and am always dumbfounded how long the drive thru line is at 8:45 a.m.
I decided to time a vehicle to see how long they really waited in the line before getting their food.
17 mins 43 seconds, that’s how long!
Now, if you ask someone who goes there odds are they’ll say they go through the drive thru to “save time”. How is sitting in your car, with it running nonetheless for that long “saving time”? Wouldn’t it have been faster to just eat at home and then leave to drive straight to work? Or, here’s a novel thought, get up earlier in the morning! Oh but wait, due to all the donuts and funky chemical food they’ve eaten, they’re not in the mood to get up earlier because of their lifestyle their health isn’t the greatest which could affect their sleep and make it harder to get up in the morning.

I know it’d save on your calories most likely, seeing how an average Dunkin Donut glazed donut is 180 calories. Note the break down, of fat, sugar, and sodium and nothing of nutritional value. Then we have their coffee w/cream & sugar which is only 90 calories but nothing of real nutritional value. So, for the average coffee & donut they’re using up about 270 calories, all of which are empty.

Now, if the person had eaten at home, they could’ve had something that was actually good for them. Let’s use blueberries for our example. One cup would be about 81 calories and full of antioxidants and vitamins & minerals. Plus how long does it take to prepare a cup of blueberries? 20 seconds? or over 17 minutes?

A smoothie, protein bar, bowl of cereal would all be better nutritionally as well as time spent to prepare and eat compared to the Dunkin Donut drive through.

Shall I even touch on the idling cars in the drive thru? You do the math, look at the below information and note the above time that one person sat in line. Then figure how many people do eat on way to work, lunch, dinner, all via fast food drive thru’s.
It’s shameful!

According to CarbonRally.com:
On average, each American car is idled 5 to 10 minutes per day. It is estimated that those cars idle enough each day to burn an additional 3.8 million gallons of gasoline. That’s right — 3.8 million gallons each day. That means that useless idling is responsible for Americans releasing an extra 40,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each day or 13 million tons of CO2 per year.

According to IdealBite: Idling 15 min per weekday can cost you up to $100 in wasted gas over the course of a year.

Which is probably more now that gas prices have gone up.

So, can someone please explain to me how it’s more convenient and time saving to sit in a drive thru rather than eat at home. Here’s an idea for those who go through drive thru’s on way to work…
get up earlier than you normally do (even if it’s only 10 minutes)
make yourself a healthy quick breakfast at home
then leisurely leave for work

You’ll ultimately save:
time
calories
your health
money
gas
the environment
possibly save yourself from having an accident since you won’t be driving and eating/drinking

Give it a try so people like me won’t feel compelled to time you at the drive thru from the gym window and come home later to blog about it.

UPDATE!!!!
My bud Dave Conrey, posted about this and more…Guilt Forces A Hungry Man Indoors, it’s a must read and goes along with this existing post