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Canadians ate an obscene amount of takeout last year

Just Eat Canada reveals top takeout trends of 2014
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TAKEOUT TRENDS Canadian ate a whole lot of takeout this year — over 1.5 million orders worth to be exact, according to recent consumer trends released by Just Eat Canada. Shutterstock photo

Let's face it: Cooking at home is a lot like flossing your teeth. Sure, it sounds like a great idea at first. But then you drag your weary self back home after a long day of working for the man, and all of a sudden... meh. Too much time, too much effort. You know, #YOLO and all that. It's no surprise that Canadians are spending less and less time in the kitchen these days. And until mad scientists invent a pill that we can joylessly ingest in place of three square meals a day, we're going to need to eat stuff.

In 2014, Canadians ate Titanic-sized boatloads of takeout, according to consumer data released by popular online ordering service, Just Eat Canada. Canucks placed over 1.5 million takeout orders through Just Eat alone in the cal endar year. Personally, I blame it on the company's smartphone app, which effectively removes the guilt associated with speaking to an actual human while ordering industrial vats of butter chicken and mattar paneer from that cute Indian place down the street that I can't just walk into for the fourth time in as many days for fear of being mercilessly ridiculed (for example).

So what else have you slovenly folks been eating these days? Well, lots of pizza, naturally. Everyone's favourite cheesy pleasure was at the top of the takeout list for many of Canada's biggest cities, including Calgary, Windsor, Hamilton, Halifax, London and Guelph. An astonishing 180,000 pies were delivered in Canada by Just Eat and, interestingly enough, Western Canada took down the lion's share, eating six times more 'za than the East Coast, presumably because everyone out here does so much zumba and acro-yoga that they can afford to indulge a bit.

Understandably, in the country's more cosmopolitan urban centres, ethnic foods typically nabbed the No. 1 spot. In Vancouver, the city's long-held obsession with sushi has yet to wane, with Japanese cuisine topping the list. Vancouverites ordered the stuff over 23,000 times, while pizza came in second and Chinese in third. In Toronto, another metropolis with a massive Asian population, there was no North American food to mention, with Chinese, Japanese and Thai cuisine making up the Top 3. Canada's most popular takeout restaurant was also in Toronto: the renowned, dirt cheap, all-you-can eat sushi joint, Noka Japanese Cuisine.

As usual, Quebecers dared to be different, with Quebec City being the only city that ordered Vietnamese food more than any other. Colonialism, y'all!

Tragically, Just Eat did not release any data for Whistler, but, based on my extensive research, it's probably a safe bet that pizza was the most popular choice.

Now, if we could only get, I dunno, one Chinese restaurant to last more than a season here, maybe that trend would change. Until then, I'll just wait here until I get my magic food pill, thank you very much. Just kidding. Is Domino's still open?