Oh Chipotle. We are all familiar with the popular assembly-line chain restaurant claiming to serve “Food with Integrity.” Although Chipotle is very similar to other casual fast food Mexican restaurants, Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle, goes to great lengths to “highlight the restaurant’s efforts in using organic ingredients and serving more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant chain.” But is Chipotle really as healthy as it appears, or is the whole idea of Chipotle a big Chipotlie?
According to Chipotle’s website, all 1,700 locations are “all about simple, fresh food without artificial flavors or fillers. Just genuine raw ingredients and their individual, delectable
flavors.” In addition, the website claims that their food is sourced from farms rather than factories, and that they “wouldn’t have it any other way.” And thank God they wouldn’t have it any other way, because their happy chickens and crisp lettuce are about the only things keeping Chipotle relatively credible. Now I’m certainly not trying to bash on Chipotle – I love the place. Their name is in my twitter bio, and a picture of one of their massively delicious burritos is my background. So as an avid customer, hearing the truth behind Chipotle’s products definitely makes me shed a tear. But to do a side-by-side comparison of Taco Bell’s burritos and Chipotle’s, we must compromise the quality of the ingredients, and look at the burritos as a whole, rather than breaking down each ingredient.
So let’s make the comparison. Taco Bell’s Supreme beef burrito, which comes with seasoned beef, beans, red sauce, lettuce, cheese, onions, tomatoes, and sour cream inside a flour tortilla, is (surprisingly) only 420 calories. A similarly crafted burrito from Chipotle, containing steak, black beans, tomatillo-red chili salsa, lettuce, cheese and sour cream inside a flour tortilla, earned a whopping 865 calories and weighs 13 ounces, as compared to the 8.5 ounce Taco Bell burrito. And if that isn’t frightening enough, the Chipotle burrito has nearly five times as much cholesterol, 20 more grams of fat, and is twice the size of the Taco Bell burrito. Independent of the comparison, an average Chipotle burrito scales at a hefty 1,180 calories, and costs you about 2,000 milligrams of sodium. Not to mention that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends a daily intake of less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day. The only upside of a meal from Chipotle? The 40 to 50 grams of protein packed in each combination of some sort of protein, rice, and beans. Maybe we can’t necessarily label Chipotle as “healthy”, but we can at least say it is a good source of protein.
So is Taco Bell healthier than Chipotle? If we’re looking at the quality of the ingredients, no. But calorie wise, if both meals are eaten in one sitting, then yes, the late night drunk food rumored to be made out of dog food is technically the better option. But I guess that’s why Taco Bell eaters “Live Más.”
A lot of you might be surprised by this study; I know I certainly was. But remember what Andrew said in class, “Your intuition is LOUSY!” We need science… and we need it to tell us that Chipotle is definitely not as healthy as it seems.
I enjoyed reading this article. Sure chipotle has a high amount of calories, but they also have a lot of nutrients in other categories from protein and carbs. Determining which calories come from good sources of nutrients should be considered when comparing which chain is healthier. Also, I’m actually a huge fan of taco bell. here’s one of my favorite things to get from there too.
I don’t know how I feel about reading this post. Everyone has a different definition of “healthy”. I did a blog post, Vegetarians vs Meat Eaters, and I compared various aspects of being healthy such as BMI, saturated fats levels, cholesterol levels, and protein intake. I understand what you said about Chipotle not being as organic or animal farming friendly but I would not necessarily say Taco Bell is healthier just based on calories and fat and sodium levels. The health levels are also very dependent on what you order from each restaurant and what ingredients you add to your meal. Overall, i would not suggest Taco Bell is better.
BTW, to the person who said someone should be a Chipotle “Super Size Me”, it has been done, and here it is: http://www.businessinsider.com/man-eats-chipotle-153-days-in-a-row-2015-7 This man shows that he hasn’t become unhealthy from it, so I think the quality of the ingredients should be considered one of the most important parts when claiming what is healthier. Here is his own website to document his eating (as of this post, he is at day 186!): http://chipotlife.com/
I am so surprised to see that Chipotle could actually be more unhealthy than Taco Bell. My brother eats at “Chip” all the time and I thought it would be the healthier alternative to Taco Bell mostly because I don’t like how food from Taco Bell smells, but it makes me realize that I may have been influenced by the Chipotle advertising and marketing. Taco Bell would be wise to promote themselves as having the healthier burrito, but maybe the difference in calories and sodium is because of the size difference. We need to be more aware of the calories we are ingesting when we eat fast food, at least now fast food places can provide that information.
I really enjoyed reading this and found it very interesting… Me, being a vegetarian, has never had either of the two options but I can only imagine how unhealthy the two of them are on ones health. One time I was actually in florida with my cousin who is a huge chipotle fan and she ordered a nice big old taco and she was asking me if I knew anything about the caloric count or whether or not another fast food place such as taco bell, McCdonalds, or Burger King would be the better option. And now I know!
This article really surprised me! Growing up I never ate fast food. I always thought Taco Bell was a lot worse for you than Chipotle. The media can really shape your opinion if you don’t know the true facts. This article really helped me further explore this topic.
Chipotle vs Taco Bell
Great post! I’ll admit that back home throughout high school, I was at Chipotle every Saturday night without hesitation. A previous comment suggested to do a, “Super Size Me” segment except Chipotle style. That’s an awesome idea, but maybe instead of throwing America’s latest and greatest addiction under the bus, a segment could be made similar to what catapulted Subway to success with Jared. It really depends on the person, because so many confounding variables (height, physical condition, etc.) play a role in what adequate sodium intake levels should be.
Most of us can agree that Chipotle is way better than Taco Bell, so it was a bit of a heartbreak to discover the underlying truth behind our favorite burrito. I think it’d be really cool to have two people of similar height, age, physical condition, and weight to each eat Chipotle and Taco Bell burritos with the same ingredients for a certain number of days, and compare the two. So one person eats the Chipotle burrito, and the other eats a Taco Bell burrito!
This post was very interesting and an awesome topic to bring up. I never realized how bad Chipotle really was for you especially compared to Taco Bell. Before reading this if someone asked me I would’ve definitely said Taco Bell was worse without hesitation. It’s kind of crazy how much advertising “healthier food” plays a role into it as well. Where Chipotle advertises they have healthy ingredients and Taco Bell doesn’t really put emphasis on the ingredients they use, it is in fact Taco Bell that is healthier. The fact that Chipotle has 5 times the amount of cholesterol as Taco Bell is crazy. I’m always going to love Chipotle though, but now I will feel a little better eating Taco Bell.
Wow…I’m shocked. I think it would be interesting to do an experiment like “Super Size Me” but Chipotle style. Even though they are not open for breakfast, I am curious as to what the health effects of eating Chipotle for every meal of the day for an entire month would be. In addition, someone of the same gender, the same relative age, similar height and weight, and the same exercise habits would eat Taco Bell for each meal of the day for a month and see how the two test subjects come out of it in the end.
There have been some tests done where people have eaten McDonald’s for every meal over a given time period and actually lost weight by exercising a bit each day! One man even ate it for 3 months and lost 37 pounds while reducing his cholesterol by a third! I wonder if the same result would happen with either Chipotle or Taco Bell or if this is just a McDonald’s phenomenon.
I really liked this post! Admittedly I am very biased towards chipotle. I am actually going there today once I leave the library! I think caloric intake from person to person is an important thing to take into account when associating calorie count with how healthy something is. Now, should we eat at Chipotle every day? Yes…. I mean NO! I think the quality of ingredients is a huge thing to consider when it comes to choosing your choice of Mexican feast! I wonder how the different ingredients individually affect our health.
I found this blog post really interesting, not only because it had to do with two things I love Chipotle and Taco Bell but because it’s something I’ve been conscious of for a while. I knew a lot of the facts about Chipotle but not in depth like numbers. I wish Chipotle didn’t have so many calories, maybe it’s serving size that effects it, I’ve also heard rumors that it’s the tortilla that also causes it. But I’m not going to lie….every once in a while I’ll treat myself to some Chipotle and then just be sure to eat really healthy afterwards.