Most of us love Chipotle and if you live in State College you know there is one located downtown from our campus. It is addicting and delicious. The few times that I’ve been there lines have been wrapped around the entire store and sometimes continue outside of the door. I remember one day I was eating there I told my friend I would regret eating this “crap” later in the day. She tried to make me feel better by saying Chipotle is the healthier option when it comes to fast foods because most of the products used or organic. This is something I’ve heard before and wasn’t necessarily sure if it was true. I decided to research if eating Chipotle truly is the healthier way to go when it comes to fast foods.
On MindBodyGreen.com, there was an article posted called “Healthy Fast Food: Is Chipotle The Winner?” The article states “45 percent of Chipotle’s beans are organic, and restaurants buy produce from local family farmers in the months it’s available,” (MindBodyGreen, 1). Yes this is a benefit, but what about the other 55 percent? Also, when you over indulge on any food, whether its healthy or not, it isn’t exactly the best thing to do.
Despite the few organic products, Chipotle menu items are extremely high in sodium, calories, oils, preservatives, and GMO’s. Livestrong.com discussed ingredients in Chipotle and when analyzing how much sodium these meals contain, they identified it to be in the area of 2,000 milligrams of sodium in one dish. They say that on average you should only consume 2,300 milligrams of sodium each day. Basically one dish wipes out your entire proper intake for the day. The calories in one chipotle dish are about 1,200 calories when you should only be consuming 2,000 a day. These calories are also mostly calories in fat. The most dangerous aspect of the Chipotle dish seems to the GMO’s which are genetically modified organisms. GMO’s are basically when a product is “genetically engineered with DNA from bacteria”, which is directly quoted from the nongmoproject.org post on GMO’s. The link describing the negatives of GMO’s is attached to the word GMO above, and they do say that it is something that is unsafe and should be avoided. GMO’s are found on many of chipotles products such as the chicken, flour, and corn because it is in a lot of the oils used. These oils contain trans fat which can be harmful to your healthy cholesterol levels.
Sources:
- MindBodyGreen. “Healthy Fast Food: Is Chipotle the Winner?”MindBodyGreen. N.p., 29 Jan. 2010. Web. 18 Sept. 2014. <http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-346/Healthy-Fast-Food-Is-Chipotle-the-Winner.html>
- McNight, Clay. “Is Chipotle Healthy?” LIVESTRONG.COM. LIVESTRONG.COM, 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 18 Sept. 2014 <http://www.livestrong.com/article/399991-is-chipotle-healthy/>
- “GMO Facts.” The NonGMO Project RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2014. <http://www.nongmoproject.org/learn-more/>
I do believe that Chipotle is overhyped sometimes. Chipotle is a great place to go for an awesome burrito, but people have almost become addicted to it. It is an easy way to get quick food that will leave your tummy full. Yet, eating chipotle daily will not be good for you as you said. I think more people should be aware that even though the restaurants are telling you their food is healthy, just how much healthier is it?
I do respect Chipotle’s efforts as a company to try and be sustainable and be conscious of the earth with their production. However, I do not think it contributes all that much to the healthiness of the food itself. I think one thing to note is that despite the fact that Chipotle is healthy as a fast food, it is still a burrito. It may be the healthiest burrito around, but it isn’t that health anyway. However, despite the sodium and calories from fat, from what I’ve read, calories from fat are not actually that bad, compared to things like calories from carbs. Overall, I think people should be complaining about Chipotle’s nutritional value in general- you won’t find much better of a choice of burrito anyplace besides your own home, for that price.
I think it depends on how you look at it/what you get. If you’re comparing a soft taco to a cheeseburger at mcdonalds, at least you can say that at chipotle you’re eating more veggies and fresh food compared to one slice of tomato and a lettuce leaf on your big mac. Of course, I’m sure if you kept piling on the cheese, sour cream, and beans, you’d probably end up with something that was no better than a burger
I think it depends on how you look at it/what you get. If you’re comparing a soft taco to a cheeseburger at mcdonalds, at least you can say that at chipotle you’re eating more veggies and fresh food compared to one slice of tomato and a lettuce leaf on your big mac. Of course, I’m sure if you kept piling on the cheese, sour cream, and beans, you’d probably end up with something that was no better than a burger
Wow this is actually so interesting! I am a very picky eater so finding healthy options is always difficult for me. I always have Chipotle as my go to “not so unhealthy” fast food. So this is very eye opening to me. I am curious if they have a calorie sheet or how they are compared to McDonalds. Chipotle advertises itself in a way where people think that they are not making poor health decisions but in reality they are. I am going to look more into this next time I eat there!