11 ms·

At Chipotle, How Many Calories Do People Really Eat?

53 points by knowtheory 12y ago

skywhopper 12y ago
A few points to balance this out: 1. Many people don't finish what they order in one meal. I can generally get two meals out of a Chipotle burrito. Many do, of course, but that can't be sussed out of the data they used. In addition, the chips sides are sized to share, and I'd wager that most people who order those do share with someone else. 2. It's a mistaken assumption that one meal ought to be only 1/3 of your daily calorie intake. Most of the meals came in around 1000 calories, but I also bet that for most people, this is their largest meal of the day. 3. The recommended maximum sodium intake of 2.4g is probably too low based on many recent studies. Sodium intake is only a significant risk for a very small handful of the population, and in fact low sodium intake is as risky if not more risky, and there's good evidence that 2.4g/day is on the low end of long-term positive health outcomes. Given the freshness and quality of the ingredients at Chipotle, and the simplicity and openness with which the food is prepared, focusing on calorie and sodium counts is an incomplete way to assess the healthiness of the food. I guarantee that a meal with fewer calories from McDonalds or in a microwaveable box is going to be overall far less healthy.
- RodericDay 12y ago
  this is a pretty good point metrics involving humans like this one are fraught with uncertainties, and usually the truth leans more towards your own opinion in actuality
- edgyswingset 12y ago
  > I'd wager that most people who order those do share with someone else. I live in a college town and this is definitely not the case here. Most people buy them for themselves. Items are also typically eaten for one meal, but it's college students so that's to be expected. > It's a mistaken assumption that one meal ought to be only 1/3 of your daily calorie intake I think what they're getting at is what you're also making a point about; that it doesn't necessarily have to be eaten in one setting. The point of lower calories is is gives you more options with what you can eat without gaining weight (assuming you're not on a weight-gain program for power lifting). What's deceiving is that, while Chipotle offers the full ranges of calories for their food, they don't mention that if you go through with all the things they offer then you usually end up in the 1000+ range. I wouldn't doubt if there are many people downing 1000+ calories thinking that they're closer to 600. > focusing on calorie and sodium counts is an incomplete way to assess the healthiness of the food This is correct, but to a point. An excess of calories, unless offset by regular exercise, leads to weight gain, which is collectively unhealthy for our society. There's obviously much more to it (an obese person who can run a mile is considered healthier than a skinny person who can't for example), but that's failing to see the bigger picture. The point is, people in developed countries are shoving more calories into themselves than they need, and places like Chipotle aren't a haven of good health - they're also part of the problem.
  - CPLX 12y ago
    > an obese person who can run a mile is considered healthier than a skinny person who can't for example Do you have a link or data to support that idea? Genuinely curious, as that doesn't sound right to me.
    - edgyswingset 12y ago
      Found one[0], but I'm sure you could also find more. This is stuff that's often taught in health programs at universities during a section on cardiorespiratory fitness. The general idea is that a fat person who can run well can support their body, whereas a skinny person who can't run well cannot support their body. [0]http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=770362 http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=77036...
    - lostcolony 12y ago
      I don't want to look up a source offhand, especially since it would require some reading between the lines, but, 56% of NFL players are obese (97% are overweight), according to BMI guidelines. Going on the same "that doesn't sound right" criteria, saying they're less healthy than a skinny, sedentary person just because they have more muscle (and possibly more fat, but after all, BMI doesn't distinguish) doesn't sound right to me.
      - CPLX 12y ago
        > 56% of NFL players are obese... Going on the same "that doesn't sound right" criteria, saying they're less healthy than a skinny, sedentary person just because they have more muscle (and possibly more fat, but after all, BMI doesn't distinguish) doesn't sound right to me. It doesn't sound right to you because it isn't correct. NFL players, as a general rule, are not obese. Obesity is an excess of fat, by both the colloquial and medical definitions. BMI is an indication of obesity, which is not the same as a definition of same. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obesity http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obesity : a condition characterized by the excessive accumulation and storage of fat in the body Medical Definition of OBESITY : a condition that is characterized by excessive accumulation and storage of fat in the body and that in an adult is typically indicated by a body mass index of 30 or greater
- rayiner 12y ago
  Also, eve if people do pig out, Chipotle has better options for people trying to keep within a calorie budget. A salad bowl with meat, salsa, and guac is really filling and under 500 calories.
- MiddleEndian 12y ago
  I usually eat a Chipotle burrito for lunch on work days. According to their site's calculator, my burrito is 970 Calories, but given that I'm a regular they usually make me large burritos, so I estimate the Calories to be closer to 1200 or 1300. But I exercise regularly and only eat two meals per day, so it's honestly the best thing I could ask for: tasty calories with a lot of protein, made of seemingly real food, that I don't have to prepare for myself.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - majestic1211 12y ago
    > A couple 15-minute light walks to and from the bus stop and the apartment/office can bring one's energy expenditure up to 3000 calories in a day Those numbers seems off. A 10km running session (~1 hour) burns approximately 800kcal. You would need quite a lot of "15-minute light walks" to go from 2000kcal/day to 3000. Way more than 4 times a day. I do agree that the 2000 calories/day, or 2500 if you exercise moderately, is not the whole story. However, I think it is a very decent estimation for most people, as long as you're not a professional athlete or deviate from the norm one way or another.
jonheller 12y ago
No mention of one of the most unhealthy components of the meal, carbohydrates? I think the average burrito clocks in at around 120 carbs
- jemacniddle 12y ago
  Carbohydrates are most certainly not 'unhealthy'. Care to cite any sources?
  - jonheller 12y ago
    Perhaps unhealthy was the wrong choice of word. But the point of the article was talking about the health issues of eating Chipotle. If one of those issues is weight gain then I would most definitely be concerned about the amount of carbohydrates in that food. I am not nutritionist. I do know that after struggling for a decade of limiting calories and fat, I gave that up, limited myself too 100g carbs / 15g sugar a day, and lost 60 pounds within a year. I still enjoyed Chipotle, but only the "bowl" variations of their food.
  - johnward 12y ago
    Carbohydrates are the most likely to cause an insulin response which causes weight gain. I'm not saying they are "unhealthy" but I think we, in the US, eat unhealthy amounts particularly refined sugars.
    - jemacniddle 12y ago
      Protein can also be fairly insulinogenic.
      - perardi 12y ago
        Protein can be more insulinogenic than carbohydrates. Whey produces a huge insulin spike relative to a fibrous fruit.
      - johnward 12y ago
        Right. Protein breaks down to glucose more than fat does (which is why keto diets recommend moderate protein and high fat). Carbs break down the most into glucose.
BallinBige 12y ago
so much for Chipotle being healthier than Mickey D's.
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  "Healthy" is a lot more involved than calorie count.
kfk 12y ago
Calories are a very broad way to measure what we need in terms of food. Eating 200-2500 at 50-60% carbs tends to make me fat-ter than eating 3000 at 20%. I cook most of the food I eat, but I take calories into account very broadly, more narrowly when I diet. Just to say, 1000 kcal might be half day worth of your energy needs on paper, in reality it's much more complex than that. In fact, if you are eating decent food and keeping fat% at ~30-40, I guarantee you that you will have troubles eating more than 2500 kcal per day. If you drink lots of soda and crap like than, then yes, you can manage even 3000. But eating a lot of calories is not such an easy task as many people think. Edit: Wow, this generated quite a lot of debate. Just to clarify, I have never said that you lose wait eating as much as you want, I said I think we should consider the number of calories more broadly. Use ranges and look into the weekly intakes too. Check what you eat. Kill all the refined sugars. Kill all the complex foods. Start cooking. That will help you more than counting kcals to the gram. It's about how you shift your way of thinking about food. Lots of food out there is almost poison if eaten regularly, lots of this food is even labelled as "healthy", again, it cannot be only about kcals, it's _also_ about kcals.
- ebbv 12y ago
  > Eating 200-2500 at 50-60% carbs tends to make me fat-ter than eating 3000 at 20%. This is horse shit. It does not matter what form the calories are in, if you are eating too many you will gain weight. If you eat less than you need you will lose weight. Source: I lost over 100 lbs in 2010-2011.
  - mason55 12y ago
    The two sides of this argument always talk past each other. As someone who lost 100lbs I'm sure you know this but lots of people don't. * Calories in vs. calories out is 100% what determines how much weight you gain or lose. * Your macronutrient ratios determine how that weight is partitioned (muscle vs fat) and have some control over hormones that contribute to hunger, like leptin. The end result is that cutting out carbs can help people get to a calorie deficit without feeling hungry like they would on a "standard" low fat diet.
JoelSutherland 12y ago
Click around with this nice tool: http://www.chipotlefan.com/index.php?id=nutrition_calculator http://www.chipotlefan.com/index.php?id=nutrition_calculator Skip the tortilla, sour cream and chips and you've just saved 980 calories. Without those it's hard to create a meal that has a calorie issue. Aside from the sodium, Chipotle is darn healthy.
- jghn 12y ago
  Maybe that's why I always find Chipotle to be ridiculously bland :)
- acadien 12y ago
  That's odd some of their values differ greatly from the ones provided by Chipotle themselves. This strikes me as a significant problem, nutritional values are provided and are totally inaccurate. Which one is accurate how can we judge? http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/menu/nutrition_calculator/nutrition_calculator.aspx http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/menu/nutrition_calculator/nutr... Looks like the information provided by chipotlefan is from 2009.
  - JoelSutherland 12y ago
    Most that I've looked at seem to be within 5-10% which is surely within the variance for food being doled out by scoop. I just preferred the UI of the first one. Which items are way off so I know what to look out for?
    - acadien 12y ago
      White rice is off by 50 calories for example (135 on chipotlefan and 185 on chipotle).
      - mason55 12y ago
        You probably get that much variance depending on the scooper anyway
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bluedino 12y ago
That huge tortilla has so many empty calories in it. Just like the Subway health fad. Jared lost weight eating 6" veggie subs without cheese or mayo. People load up that huge foot long bun with cheese and sauce, an oven roasted chicken breast sub is 960 calories with mayo and cheese. Add in a soft drink and a bag of chips and you're triple what Jared would eat.
- wdewind 12y ago
  Describing calories as "empty" is not really a useful way to think about nutrition. Carbs are not "empty," they are your primary energy source. In fact, as you point out, Jared lost weight primarily by removing fats from his diet, not carbs.
  - enjo 12y ago
    He removed calories from his diet.
jusben1369 12y ago
I lost interest in Chipotle pretty quickly and had begun labelling it Chipsaltle when family or friends wanted to eat there. So the sodium data was interesting to me and validated what I felt after eating there (parched a few hours later) I'm not for or against fast food. I just think Chipotle has wonderful marketing and has really tapped into what people _want_ to believe or have. I want all the conveniences of fast food without feeling like it's unhealthy or responsible for big agriculture. I don't think it's going to end well.....
DontBeADick 12y ago
> The distributions of two other metrics of a meal’s health — salt and saturated fat Did I accidentally fall into a time machine and end up in the 1980s?
blankenship 12y ago
My wife and I regularly split a burrito bowl, getting extra rice and beans.Chipotle ends up being one of the few “heathy” places we can eat out for ~$5/person.
dlevine 12y ago
My question has always been how accurate these calorie counts are. I always get a burrito bowl with no sour cream, which allegedly comes out to 655 calories. But I'm not entirely sure how accurate that is - I usually have to tell the person "a little cheese," because when I don't, they often put a mountain of cheese atop the bowl (probably an extra 100 calories or so).
- kevindalias 12y ago
  This is the most important point here. For my meals out, I prefer to eat at restaurants which publish nutrition information, but I'm under no illusions that these values are anything more than rough guidance. The core of the problem is in employee training. I find that even restaurants which make an effort to publish nutrition info don't bother to adequately train employees to serve the expected amounts of food. Your cheese example is a good one. Based solely on anecdotal evidence, I'd wager most people who order cheese at Chipotle end up being served 1.5-3x the intended serving size due to generous and unmeasured portions. I love cheese as much as the next guy, but an extra few hundred unexpected calories adds up very quickly. This also renders any analysis of nutritional value misleading if not useless.
pacofvf 12y ago
As a Mexican living in Mexico, I really like chipotle, I eat one every time I'm in the US, they are the greatest mix of American and Mexican food, still I don't understand why there aren't authentic "Taquerias" (taco shops) in the US, I haven't met a foreigner that doesn't love tacos from our taquerias that you can find in every corner in Mexico City. The closest I ever tried was at a Taco Truck in LA, but that was just one food truck.
- nilkn 12y ago
  There are taquerias on virtually every street corner in Houston. Go deeper into the US, though, and you're right; they become increasingly rare. You can still find gems of authentic Mexican food in almost all sufficiently large American cities, but you have to specifically seek it out in many cases.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > still I don't understand why there aren't authentic "Taquerias" (taco shops) in the US, In most of California and the parts of the Southwest I've been to, taquerias are very common. > The closest I ever tried was at a Taco Truck in LA, but that was just one food truck. If you were in L.A. and you couldn't find taquerias, you weren't looking very hard (or you had a bad guide.)
  - pacofvf 12y ago
    You are maybe right, when I was in LA I wasn't actively searching for taquerias, although I ate at couple of them , like I said the most authentic tacos were the ones from a taco truck.
jsmith0295 12y ago
Why did they have to tear all of these innocent burritos open? Savages...hopefully they at least let someone eat the remains...
rvvvr 12y ago
Important rejoinder: http://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/8051367/obesity-snacks http://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/8051367/obesity-snacks The underlying issue with overeating isn't large meals, it's snacks. So sure, Chipotle's meals are big, but that's not the root of the problem.

53 points by knowtheory 12y ago

A few points to balance this out: 1. Many people don't finish what they order in one meal. I can generally get two meals out of a Chipotle burrito. Many do, of course, but that can't be sussed out of the data they used. In addition, the chips sides are sized to share, and I'd wager that most people who order those do share with someone else. 2. It's a mistaken assumption that one meal ought to be only 1/3 of your daily calorie intake. Most of the meals came in around 1000 calories, but I also bet that for most people, this is their largest meal of the day. 3. The recommended maximum sodium intake of 2.4g is probably too low based on many recent studies. Sodium intake is only a significant risk for a very small handful of the population, and in fact low sodium intake is as risky if not more risky, and there's good evidence that 2.4g/day is on the low end of long-term positive health outcomes. Given the freshness and quality of the ingredients at Chipotle, and the simplicity and openness with which the food is prepared, focusing on calorie and sodium counts is an incomplete way to assess the healthiness of the food. I guarantee that a meal with fewer calories from McDonalds or in a microwaveable box is going to be overall far less healthy.

RodericDay 12y ago
this is a pretty good point metrics involving humans like this one are fraught with uncertainties, and usually the truth leans more towards your own opinion in actuality
edgyswingset 12y ago
> I'd wager that most people who order those do share with someone else. I live in a college town and this is definitely not the case here. Most people buy them for themselves. Items are also typically eaten for one meal, but it's college students so that's to be expected. > It's a mistaken assumption that one meal ought to be only 1/3 of your daily calorie intake I think what they're getting at is what you're also making a point about; that it doesn't necessarily have to be eaten in one setting. The point of lower calories is is gives you more options with what you can eat without gaining weight (assuming you're not on a weight-gain program for power lifting). What's deceiving is that, while Chipotle offers the full ranges of calories for their food, they don't mention that if you go through with all the things they offer then you usually end up in the 1000+ range. I wouldn't doubt if there are many people downing 1000+ calories thinking that they're closer to 600. > focusing on calorie and sodium counts is an incomplete way to assess the healthiness of the food This is correct, but to a point. An excess of calories, unless offset by regular exercise, leads to weight gain, which is collectively unhealthy for our society. There's obviously much more to it (an obese person who can run a mile is considered healthier than a skinny person who can't for example), but that's failing to see the bigger picture. The point is, people in developed countries are shoving more calories into themselves than they need, and places like Chipotle aren't a haven of good health - they're also part of the problem.
- CPLX 12y ago
  > an obese person who can run a mile is considered healthier than a skinny person who can't for example Do you have a link or data to support that idea? Genuinely curious, as that doesn't sound right to me.
  - edgyswingset 12y ago
    Found one[0], but I'm sure you could also find more. This is stuff that's often taught in health programs at universities during a section on cardiorespiratory fitness. The general idea is that a fat person who can run well can support their body, whereas a skinny person who can't run well cannot support their body. [0]http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=770362 http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=77036...
  - lostcolony 12y ago
    I don't want to look up a source offhand, especially since it would require some reading between the lines, but, 56% of NFL players are obese (97% are overweight), according to BMI guidelines. Going on the same "that doesn't sound right" criteria, saying they're less healthy than a skinny, sedentary person just because they have more muscle (and possibly more fat, but after all, BMI doesn't distinguish) doesn't sound right to me.
    - CPLX 12y ago
      > 56% of NFL players are obese... Going on the same "that doesn't sound right" criteria, saying they're less healthy than a skinny, sedentary person just because they have more muscle (and possibly more fat, but after all, BMI doesn't distinguish) doesn't sound right to me. It doesn't sound right to you because it isn't correct. NFL players, as a general rule, are not obese. Obesity is an excess of fat, by both the colloquial and medical definitions. BMI is an indication of obesity, which is not the same as a definition of same. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obesity http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obesity : a condition characterized by the excessive accumulation and storage of fat in the body Medical Definition of OBESITY : a condition that is characterized by excessive accumulation and storage of fat in the body and that in an adult is typically indicated by a body mass index of 30 or greater
rayiner 12y ago
Also, eve if people do pig out, Chipotle has better options for people trying to keep within a calorie budget. A salad bowl with meat, salsa, and guac is really filling and under 500 calories.
MiddleEndian 12y ago
I usually eat a Chipotle burrito for lunch on work days. According to their site's calculator, my burrito is 970 Calories, but given that I'm a regular they usually make me large burritos, so I estimate the Calories to be closer to 1200 or 1300. But I exercise regularly and only eat two meals per day, so it's honestly the best thing I could ask for: tasty calories with a lot of protein, made of seemingly real food, that I don't have to prepare for myself.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- majestic1211 12y ago
  > A couple 15-minute light walks to and from the bus stop and the apartment/office can bring one's energy expenditure up to 3000 calories in a day Those numbers seems off. A 10km running session (~1 hour) burns approximately 800kcal. You would need quite a lot of "15-minute light walks" to go from 2000kcal/day to 3000. Way more than 4 times a day. I do agree that the 2000 calories/day, or 2500 if you exercise moderately, is not the whole story. However, I think it is a very decent estimation for most people, as long as you're not a professional athlete or deviate from the norm one way or another.

jonheller 12y ago

No mention of one of the most unhealthy components of the meal, carbohydrates? I think the average burrito clocks in at around 120 carbs

jemacniddle 12y ago
Carbohydrates are most certainly not 'unhealthy'. Care to cite any sources?
- jonheller 12y ago
  Perhaps unhealthy was the wrong choice of word. But the point of the article was talking about the health issues of eating Chipotle. If one of those issues is weight gain then I would most definitely be concerned about the amount of carbohydrates in that food. I am not nutritionist. I do know that after struggling for a decade of limiting calories and fat, I gave that up, limited myself too 100g carbs / 15g sugar a day, and lost 60 pounds within a year. I still enjoyed Chipotle, but only the "bowl" variations of their food.
- johnward 12y ago
  Carbohydrates are the most likely to cause an insulin response which causes weight gain. I'm not saying they are "unhealthy" but I think we, in the US, eat unhealthy amounts particularly refined sugars.
  - jemacniddle 12y ago
    Protein can also be fairly insulinogenic.
    - perardi 12y ago
      Protein can be more insulinogenic than carbohydrates. Whey produces a huge insulin spike relative to a fibrous fruit.
    - johnward 12y ago
      Right. Protein breaks down to glucose more than fat does (which is why keto diets recommend moderate protein and high fat). Carbs break down the most into glucose.

BallinBige 12y ago

so much for Chipotle being healthier than Mickey D's.

ceejayoz 12y ago
"Healthy" is a lot more involved than calorie count.

kfk 12y ago

Calories are a very broad way to measure what we need in terms of food. Eating 200-2500 at 50-60% carbs tends to make me fat-ter than eating 3000 at 20%. I cook most of the food I eat, but I take calories into account very broadly, more narrowly when I diet. Just to say, 1000 kcal might be half day worth of your energy needs on paper, in reality it's much more complex than that. In fact, if you are eating decent food and keeping fat% at ~30-40, I guarantee you that you will have troubles eating more than 2500 kcal per day. If you drink lots of soda and crap like than, then yes, you can manage even 3000. But eating a lot of calories is not such an easy task as many people think. Edit: Wow, this generated quite a lot of debate. Just to clarify, I have never said that you lose wait eating as much as you want, I said I think we should consider the number of calories more broadly. Use ranges and look into the weekly intakes too. Check what you eat. Kill all the refined sugars. Kill all the complex foods. Start cooking. That will help you more than counting kcals to the gram. It's about how you shift your way of thinking about food. Lots of food out there is almost poison if eaten regularly, lots of this food is even labelled as "healthy", again, it cannot be only about kcals, it's _also_ about kcals.

ebbv 12y ago
> Eating 200-2500 at 50-60% carbs tends to make me fat-ter than eating 3000 at 20%. This is horse shit. It does not matter what form the calories are in, if you are eating too many you will gain weight. If you eat less than you need you will lose weight. Source: I lost over 100 lbs in 2010-2011.
- mason55 12y ago
  The two sides of this argument always talk past each other. As someone who lost 100lbs I'm sure you know this but lots of people don't. * Calories in vs. calories out is 100% what determines how much weight you gain or lose. * Your macronutrient ratios determine how that weight is partitioned (muscle vs fat) and have some control over hormones that contribute to hunger, like leptin. The end result is that cutting out carbs can help people get to a calorie deficit without feeling hungry like they would on a "standard" low fat diet.

JoelSutherland 12y ago

Click around with this nice tool: http://www.chipotlefan.com/index.php?id=nutrition_calculator http://www.chipotlefan.com/index.php?id=nutrition_calculator Skip the tortilla, sour cream and chips and you've just saved 980 calories. Without those it's hard to create a meal that has a calorie issue. Aside from the sodium, Chipotle is darn healthy.

jghn 12y ago
Maybe that's why I always find Chipotle to be ridiculously bland :)
acadien 12y ago
That's odd some of their values differ greatly from the ones provided by Chipotle themselves. This strikes me as a significant problem, nutritional values are provided and are totally inaccurate. Which one is accurate how can we judge? http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/menu/nutrition_calculator/nutrition_calculator.aspx http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/menu/nutrition_calculator/nutr... Looks like the information provided by chipotlefan is from 2009.
- JoelSutherland 12y ago
  Most that I've looked at seem to be within 5-10% which is surely within the variance for food being doled out by scoop. I just preferred the UI of the first one. Which items are way off so I know what to look out for?
  - acadien 12y ago
    White rice is off by 50 calories for example (135 on chipotlefan and 185 on chipotle).
    - mason55 12y ago
      You probably get that much variance depending on the scooper anyway

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

bluedino 12y ago

That huge tortilla has so many empty calories in it. Just like the Subway health fad. Jared lost weight eating 6" veggie subs without cheese or mayo. People load up that huge foot long bun with cheese and sauce, an oven roasted chicken breast sub is 960 calories with mayo and cheese. Add in a soft drink and a bag of chips and you're triple what Jared would eat.

wdewind 12y ago
Describing calories as "empty" is not really a useful way to think about nutrition. Carbs are not "empty," they are your primary energy source. In fact, as you point out, Jared lost weight primarily by removing fats from his diet, not carbs.
- enjo 12y ago
  He removed calories from his diet.

jusben1369 12y ago

I lost interest in Chipotle pretty quickly and had begun labelling it Chipsaltle when family or friends wanted to eat there. So the sodium data was interesting to me and validated what I felt after eating there (parched a few hours later) I'm not for or against fast food. I just think Chipotle has wonderful marketing and has really tapped into what people _want_ to believe or have. I want all the conveniences of fast food without feeling like it's unhealthy or responsible for big agriculture. I don't think it's going to end well.....

DontBeADick 12y ago

> The distributions of two other metrics of a meal’s health — salt and saturated fat Did I accidentally fall into a time machine and end up in the 1980s?

blankenship 12y ago

My wife and I regularly split a burrito bowl, getting extra rice and beans.Chipotle ends up being one of the few “heathy” places we can eat out for ~$5/person.

dlevine 12y ago

My question has always been how accurate these calorie counts are. I always get a burrito bowl with no sour cream, which allegedly comes out to 655 calories. But I'm not entirely sure how accurate that is - I usually have to tell the person "a little cheese," because when I don't, they often put a mountain of cheese atop the bowl (probably an extra 100 calories or so).

kevindalias 12y ago
This is the most important point here. For my meals out, I prefer to eat at restaurants which publish nutrition information, but I'm under no illusions that these values are anything more than rough guidance. The core of the problem is in employee training. I find that even restaurants which make an effort to publish nutrition info don't bother to adequately train employees to serve the expected amounts of food. Your cheese example is a good one. Based solely on anecdotal evidence, I'd wager most people who order cheese at Chipotle end up being served 1.5-3x the intended serving size due to generous and unmeasured portions. I love cheese as much as the next guy, but an extra few hundred unexpected calories adds up very quickly. This also renders any analysis of nutritional value misleading if not useless.

pacofvf 12y ago

As a Mexican living in Mexico, I really like chipotle, I eat one every time I'm in the US, they are the greatest mix of American and Mexican food, still I don't understand why there aren't authentic "Taquerias" (taco shops) in the US, I haven't met a foreigner that doesn't love tacos from our taquerias that you can find in every corner in Mexico City. The closest I ever tried was at a Taco Truck in LA, but that was just one food truck.

nilkn 12y ago
There are taquerias on virtually every street corner in Houston. Go deeper into the US, though, and you're right; they become increasingly rare. You can still find gems of authentic Mexican food in almost all sufficiently large American cities, but you have to specifically seek it out in many cases.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> still I don't understand why there aren't authentic "Taquerias" (taco shops) in the US, In most of California and the parts of the Southwest I've been to, taquerias are very common. > The closest I ever tried was at a Taco Truck in LA, but that was just one food truck. If you were in L.A. and you couldn't find taquerias, you weren't looking very hard (or you had a bad guide.)
- pacofvf 12y ago
  You are maybe right, when I was in LA I wasn't actively searching for taquerias, although I ate at couple of them , like I said the most authentic tacos were the ones from a taco truck.

jsmith0295 12y ago

Why did they have to tear all of these innocent burritos open? Savages...hopefully they at least let someone eat the remains...

rvvvr 12y ago

Important rejoinder: http://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/8051367/obesity-snacks http://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/8051367/obesity-snacks The underlying issue with overeating isn't large meals, it's snacks. So sure, Chipotle's meals are big, but that's not the root of the problem.