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Food

Millions of Brits Eat Breakfast While They Drive and Sit on the Toilet

Apparently, a fairly large percentage of Britons think it's totally legit to eat cornflakes while operating heavy machinery or chow down on a sausage while in the loo.
Photo via Flickr user Andy Beaumont

Waking up is hard to do. Alarm, snooze, alarm, snooze, shower, cut yourself shaving, stick toilet paper on your face or leg, pull on jeans from yesterday and slightly wrinkled shirt, and haul ass out the door.

You're hungry, sure, but there's never time to make those gnarly zucchini mini muffins that you saw on Pinterest. In fact, you're lucky if you have time to grab a yogurt cup or a bowl of cereal.

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Many Brits, fortunately enough, do find the time to squeeze in that oatmeal or bowl of Rice Krispies just fine: they take it in the car with them and happily eat it while operating heavy machinery.

After images of a woman driving and eating cornflakes at the same time went viral yesterday (posted by a concerned bicyclist who was riding alongside the on-the-go breakfast-eater), UK's Metro was keen to point out that she's far from the only one.

Nutritional breakfast shake company Up&Go recently polled more than 1,000 Britons about their morning eating habits and found that an estimated 2.6 million people in the UK are making like Cornflake Lady, chowing down on their breakfast while they speed along the road with one hand on the wheel and another ostensibly cooking eggs Benedict over the heating vent. The largest concentrations of cereal Speed Racers are found in Northern Ireland and the South West of England, with an estimated 14 percent and 8 percent of commuters, respectively, eatin' while drivin'.

Seventy-four percent of those polled by Metro called eating cereal at the wheel "unforgivable," while 26 percent dismissed it as "no biggie." In short: it's largely considered not cool, guys. Between the liquid, the spoon, the bowl—maybe a little hazardous to be configuring at 55 kilometers an hour.

Another 5 percent of Brits (about 3 million people) eat their breakfast while commuting. Mmm, don't you just love a plate of blueberry pancakes on the train at 7:30 AM? (In seriousness, these "breakfasts" are far more likely a granola bar and a chocolate milk or something along those lines.)

Even more worrying than these people driving under the influence of muesli are the additional 5 percent of respondents who said that they typically eat their breakfast in the bathroom, and even on the porcelain throne, in order to save time. Guess that gives a whole new meaning to the notion of an efficient workout. (Side note: The people who eat cereal in the VICE bathrooms should be aware that the MUNCHIES editorial staff is on to you.)

A little less than one in ten people is skipping breakfast entirely—which sounds low, but is right on par with the habits of their over-the-pond neighbors Americans as well.

Forgoing breakfast isn't ideal, but a word to the toilet-diners: It's still less depressing than eating a sausage biscuit sandwich while you drop the kids off at the pool.