4 Things You Should Never Order From Dunkin Donuts

Despite the donut-centric worldview implied by their branding, Dunkin' Donuts is almost equally famous for its coffee. In fact Dunkin' dares to declare its wake-up juice to be "America's favorite coffee," although the reality is probably more nuanced than that. But coffee and donuts aside, Double D also offers a whole host of frothy, gooey, chewy, drippy, and oily options to satisfy almost any craving you might be feeling as you walk past their door. However, whatever the truth about "America's favorite coffee," you shouldn't assume the rest of their offerings deserve similar accolades. Because as you will see, while their donuts might beg to be dunked in their coffee, a few other items on their menu are a slam dunk for the trash.

The sausage, egg, and cheese croissant is an item from the Dunkin' Donuts breakfast sandwich menu, so it's fair to assume it's a breakfast sandwich. But while all the elements of this dish certainly appear to be breakfast ingredients, their combination and arrangement is not so much classic morning fare as breakfast burger with an identity crisis.

Starting with the egg, the first question you need to ask is: have you ever actually seen a grill in a Dunkin' Donuts? And the answer would be no. So when you order a sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich, the egg doesn't come from a shell. The sausage is the traditional formless slab of meat that is just about the laziest way to serve pork, and the cheese is the so-called "American cheese," which has become synonymous with cheap burger dives but definitely not with quality. And then it all gets thrown into a croissant. A croissant is a delicate French breakfast pastry often served with butter and preserves, but despoiling it with mystery egg, pork slab, and default cheese almost ranks as a crime against culture. And if that isn't enough to convince you not to order one, how about the fact that it contains 700 calories, 100 percent of your recommended daily amount of saturated fat (20 grams), and 72 percent of your cholesterol (215 mg). It isn't just a crime against culture, but your health as well.

Double D probably started to serve breakfast sandwiches to avoid losing the business of people who don't think donuts are breakfast, which is totally understandable. However, Dunkin' Donuts shops are designed and set up to make and sell donuts, which means they aren't going to be the best place to make breakfast. If you really want cheap meat in a bun, go to McDonald's. You'll probably be disappointed there, too, but at least cheap meat in a bun is what those stores are designed to do. Dunkin' Donuts specializes in donuts and it's what they're famous for, so if you want something to eat for breakfast and the place you find yourself is a donut shop, buy the donuts! Otherwise you might as well go to Starbucks and order a bloody mary.

To the person who buys oatmeal at Dunkin' Donuts: who are you trying to kid? Why would you go to DDs, look at all the sweet, doughy goodness behind the glass, and then order oatmeal? Is it some kind of punishment? Psychological flagellation? A test of will power? Or perhaps some kind of smug healthy eating statement you like to make in front of all the Sunday morning donut eaters while wearing your favorite CrossFit T-shirt? The person who suggested Dunkin' Donuts should sell oatmeal probably meant it as a joke, but so keen were the bosses to create a healthier image that they missed the joke entirely and shipped it to the stores. Why a purveyor of sticky treats (and coffee) would want to offer something as boring and self-contradictory as oatmeal is anyone's guess because they can't possibly sell any ... can they?

On one hand, the idea of a single-serving coffee maker that tastes as good as filtered coffee makes sense. On the other, the mountain of non-recyclable and non-biodegradable plastic generated every day is nothing short of a crime. And while they may be terribly convenient, if you're making all your coffee using K-Cups, you could be paying as much as $40 per pound of coffee. Dunkin' Donuts K-Cups are convenient, nutritionally insignificant on their own, and free those of us who think the coffee that comes out of a donut shop is special enough to make at home. K-Cups should really only be popular among lonely singletons and office workers who can't be bothered to deal with the meager maintenance required by a regular coffee machine. But instead, literal billions of K-Cups are sold each year, and every single one of those will eventually end up in a landfill. If you must make Dunkin' Donuts coffee at home, buy a pound bag of ground coffee and resist the temptation of a conveniently packaged environmental catastrophe you can make at home.