Apparently We Order Food From Convenience Stores While Very Sick Or Very High

The end of the year is a time of gift-giving (and gift-receiving) for us all, but to digital media properties, there is no greater gift than big ol' packages of 2021 consumer spending data. This week's bounty comes to us from food delivery service DoorDash, whose annual "Deep Dish Report" is crammed with data about who is buying which foods from where. In 2021, its findings paint a pretty clear picture of how we turn to food as a source of comfort—or, reading between the lines a bit, the foods we crave when we're positively baked.

Let's talk broad trends first. The DoorDash report confirms that online grocery shopping is on the rise, and that Saturday continues to be the most popular day for grocery delivery, "with most orders coming in around dinnertime." I found this one a bit surprising, only because if I'm going to wait around my house for a grocery delivery I'd rather not do so on the weekend. How about you?

DoorDash also noted that the expansion of its alcohol delivery services has been, perhaps unsurprisingly, a success, with customers ordering lots of wine and even premium spirits (Casamigos tequila and Hennessy cognac among them). While some news outlets might connect this trend to "Americans seeking comfort while staying home in a pandemic," I would also point out that for people in major cities without cars, bottles of alcohol are heavy to carry home, plain and simple.

But nothing could be more revealing than the DoorDash report's list of the Top Convenience Items ordered in 2021. Here they are, below:

1. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice cream
2. Lemon-Lime Soda
3. Mac and Cheese Bites
4. Peanut Butter Cups
5. Energy Drink
6. Sour Cream & Onion Potato Chips
7. Sour Gummy Worms
8. Beef Jerky
9. Frosted Mini Donuts
10. Pickle Bites

Notice a pattern here? These utterly non-essential snacks, drinks, and desserts all seem to fall into two categories: things ordered while sick, and things ordered while high.

When you're feeling like death and can't lift yourself off the couch, nothing sounds more appealing than having a reviving bottle of Sprite and some comforting, fortifying hot food like mac and cheese bites sent directly to your door. Conversely, when you're a few dozen milligrams deep into some fine THC, what could be better than manifesting donuts, pickle bites, gummy worms, and ice cream without having to enter a harshly fluorescent-lit store to collect them?

If any of your favorite orders are represented in the list above, let it be known that we see you, we understand you, and we praise your taste in potato chips.