How to get your 2,500 daily calories from Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts

• We're comparing breakfast options at Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts to see how they stack up in calories and nutrition.
• Insider's Joe Avella looks over each chain's breakfast menu to see what it takes to get his daily intake of calories, vitamins, and minerals delivered to his door.
• Although Starbucks has better produce options, the sodium and cholesterol in the sandwiches and wraps are still pretty high. So when it comes to the sandwiches and wraps Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts are pretty similar.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Joe Avella: In this episode of "2,500 Calories," I wanted to compare Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts' breakfast menus to see which is the best for getting my daily 2,500 caloric intake and provide the most vitamins and nutrients. I reached out to nutritionist Samantha Cassetty for tips on how to make healthier choices, like looking closer to the ingredients label and exploring the sides to fill in nutritional gaps. I painfully calculated the best orders for each place, which was harder than it looks, compared the costs, and broke each order down to one portion, comparing the colorful and much-healthier-looking Starbucks versus the more breakfasty-looking brown rainbow that is Dunkin' Donuts.

Just so we can be perfectly clear about it, it probably is not a good idea to get all of my calories by eating doughnuts, yes?
Samantha Cassetty: That's correct. Don't think that when you go into Starbucks, it's a ton healthier than the Dunkin' Donuts breakfast sandwiches, because you have, in both cases, a lot of fillers in the eggs, a lot of refined grains and processed meats.
Joe: What are some of the items that you would suggest I get when trying to reach the 2,500 calories at Starbucks?
Samantha: I would go for the spinach, feta, and cage-free egg white wrap, and I think I would dip that in some avocado spread. That avocado has those healthy fats, and healthy fats are actually loaded with some calories, but when you look to see all of the added fillers that are in the eggs, I think it's probably, you know, not ideal for every day. For one thing, I think it's a good idea to look at the side things, so, like, banana, orange, the seasonal fruit blend. They have a bunch of packaged nuts that are great options, yogurts, and things like that in the side cases. I was impressed by the oatmeal because it's mostly just oats, and then you can add in the other toppings as you like.
Joe: Dunkin' Donuts, they do have a DDSmart menu that I think is meant to be a little bit healthier. First impressions of their menu for breakfast? Like, what did you think?
Samantha: There's really very little produce on this menu. I thought the veggie egg white sandwich would be one of the healthier choices there. I think it's peppers and some vegetables. It does have a controlled amount of sodium for a restaurant meal. 550 milligrams is actually not bad for a restaurant meal. It contains some fiber.
Joe: Yeah, like, I'm looking at the DDSmart, and real quick, it says on here, the "Foods and Beverages with the DDSMART logo are: Reduced in calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar or sodium by at least 25% compared to a base product or other appropriate reference product." It seems like a really roundabout way of saying, of all the things that you can get, these are the least worst.
Samantha: These are not the worst things on the menu, but you could do better elsewhere.
Joe: So, it looks like Dunkin' Donuts is gonna be a tougher one.
Samantha: They just do not hit a home run.

Joe: All right, sound levels, checking. Let me close the.... Definitely feel like I've got a lot more better information for making healthier choices.

So, I feel like first thing I should be getting is the, um, that feta guy. Yep. Yeah, she'd say try a yogurt. Calculate nutritional facts. Is this for everything? I'm only at 520? Southwest veggie wrap. All right, that's got some veg in it.

All right, 1,100, there we go. What's it say in sodium? [laughs] Already at 95% of my sodium for the day. [groans] OK, so we've hit the 100% with sodium. Hoo-hoo, the cholesterol. [groans] It's already a lot of cholesterol. I'm not even there yet. So, from this point forward, everything I'm adding is just extra sodium.

Yes, they got the avocado spread. Oh, banana's 110 calories, is that right? And then the fruit and nut blend. All right, so I need 1,180 more calories. How many bananas is that? [laughs] 10. Oh, my God, the Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino's 520 calories? Is that available? And a bag of almonds. That's 260. Let's just double-check my math. 1,320. F---! What'd I do wrong? Oh! I was gonna do another banana, right? Let's do another banana.

OK, let's do Dunkin' Donuts. I'm just looking for the word "veggie." 45% of my sodium from one sandwich, good Lord. The DDSmart, that's what I'm looking for. This is the "healthier than the other stuff on our menu" list. What if we did the turkey sausage English muffin? Hey, and a multigrain bagel. Let's get some bagels on this. Dunkin', come on, guys. You don't have any, like, fruit cup?

I need 1,000 more calories. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Each serving will come with a doughnut. Yeah, each serving comes with a side of doughnut, all right. It would be ridiculous to not get at least one doughnut at Dunkin' Donuts. I realize I'm getting three, but what do you want? What do you want from me? So, using the calculator app, 2,690, give or take a few calories depending on which doughnuts will be available there. Don't think this is the worst order I could have gotten here, because I am getting the egg white veggie Wake-Up Wrap, I am getting some oatmeal with dried fruit on it, I am getting fire-roasted veggies in that burrito bowl, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, egg white flatbread multigrain bagel, veggie cream cheese. The sodium...I mean, what am I gonna do, man? I think overall I'm feeling pretty good about these orders, so I'm gonna put them in right now.

And now the cost breakdowns. For Starbucks, southwest veggie wrap. They were all out of southwest veggie wraps, so they gave me two spinach, feta, and cage-free egg white wraps instead, which is OK, I guess. $4.15. Fruit and nuts, $2.25. Hearty blueberry oatmeal, $3.75. Berry trio parfait, $3.75. Classic almonds, $2.25. And a venti White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino, $5.45. Two bananas, $2.50. Strawberry overnight grains, $3.75. Avocado spread, $1.25. And this Peter Rabbit organic strawberry-banana thingy for $2.25. Total for this trip: $35.50

There's probably a price difference for the substitution of the wrap, but I don't know if they changed that. Anyway, Dunkin' Donuts. We got: bagel and cream cheese, $2.99. Veggie egg white omelet, $4.29. Wake-Up Wrap, the veggie, egg white, and cheese one, $1.99. Egg white bowl, $5.49. Sweet black pepper Snackin' Bacon, $2.49. Hash browns, $1.49. Jelly doughnut, $1.39. Chocolate-frosted doughnut, $1.39, and a glazed doughnut, $1.39. And the total for that trip: $22.91

I was assuming Starbucks would be way more expensive, but looking at the total cost before delivery fees, Dunkin' Donuts is not that much cheaper. Let's take a look at one portion for each. Starbucks. A third of each wrap. Now we add the oatmeal. I know you wouldn't normally do this. And I gotta give it up to Starbucks. This oatmeal is thick! Almonds. F and N's. Measure these bananas real quick. I got these bananas for pickup, and they're a little greener than I'd prefer. Def not the ones I would have picked. Let's not forget that Frappuccino. Actually, this doesn't seem like that much. Hmm. All right, not a bad plate. I also forgot I had the avo spread, strawberry parfait, and this weird puree thing. So imagine a third of these in the mix.

Dunkin' Donuts time. What does a third of a bagel look like? Or a third of a breakfast sandwich? OK, I gotta say, I'm kind of liking the looks of this one more. Looks more breakfasty. It seems Starbucks is more for the light-and-healthy breakfast crowd, where Dunkin's is for the eggs, bacon, and potato crowd. Although Starbucks has better produce options, the sodium and cholesterol in the sandwiches and wraps are still pretty high, and their eggs have ingredients that make them more than just eggs. So when it comes to the sandwiches and wraps, Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts are pretty similar. What I liked about Starbucks were the sides like the avocado spread, the nuts, and the fruit, which were great for getting much-needed nutritional boosts. And you know what, I wanna give Dunkin' Donuts points for offering a side of bacon. Bacon's amazing, and I commend them for giving the people what they want.

At both places, I tacked on either a venti Frappucino or a bunch of doughnuts to hit my calorie goal. So both menus require this kind of balancing act of sugar versus carbs versus sodium that can be very frustrating.

Starbucks does not share their vitamin info. Why? I have no idea, but if you were looking to get specific vitamins from Dunkin' Donuts' breakfast, here's a few ways. For your daily vitamin C, two fire-roasted veggie burrito bowls or three Power Breakfast Sandwiches should do it. Vitamin A. The breakfast sandwich with the most vitamin A is the All You Can Meat Breakfast Sandwich. To get your daily requirement, you'd need to eat five of them, but that's also 7,700 milligrams of sodium. So please don't do that. Iron. To get all the 8 milligrams you need, just have one Dunkin' double-veggie sausage sandwich. Booyah. Calcium. One Beyond Sausage Sandwich has 245 milligrams of calcium. So if you have four of those, that bumps you up to roughly 980. Throw in a plain bagel for an extra 20 milligrams, and there you go. Potassium. To hit the 4,700 milligrams, you should eat about 11 double-sausage breakfast sandwiches. Yeah, don't do that.

All right, once again, I'll portion these up, toss them in the fridge, and see how I fare over the next two days. Bye.