10.15.2005

Chipotle is dangerous

I just went to Chipotle to get some guacamole and chips for my husband. Every time I pass one of those places, I wonder how fattening it is since Mexican food isn't known for being the most healthy food on the planet. I've never eaten any food from there because I don't know what I would be consuming. However, just in case I were to eat some in the future, I wanted to get some nutritional information from their site.

Their site is confusing and annoying. There's a small, "breathing" graphic that you're supposed to click, and if you don't like complicated, flashy graphics or can't process them, it would take too long to figure out where to get any nutritional information. They're so busy entertaining you that you may not even be able to get past the vague menu or cutsy presentation where some information is supposed to be buried.

So I continued my search, and found a Chipotle nutrition calculator that a smart college student created. He says:

The idea for the Chipotle Calculator came when Matt e-mailed Chipotle for the nutritional information on their burritos. They replied with a PDF sheet listing the nutritional information for the individual ingredients, but it was annoying to calculate what your burrito has manually.

Being lazy, in an odd reverse-lazy kind of way, Matt decided to write up the Chipotle Calculator to make it easy to find out how healthy his burrito was. He posted a link to the calculator on a few forums accross the net, and shared it with his friends. Before long the calculator page was getting 500+ Chipotle hungry visitors every day. Because of the success of the page Matt decided to go all out, getting the domain ChipotleFan.com and re-doing the site.

It's great how people start little projects online that grow into something big and useful, which makes the doing of it and the subsequent success even more gratifying.

What I learned from the calculator is that Chipotle is very caloric, fatty food that I should avoid, unless I want to limit my consumption to one bite. Which is amazing, considering the founder of that company looks fit and healthy. I wonder if he eats his own food anymore. After all, 90% of it is owned by McDonald's.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're not correct about the McDonald's Chipotle connection. McDonald's owns 0 percent of Chipotle. McDonald's owned shares in the past, but no longer.

You're correct that it can be fattening, but it's not if you skip the gauc and cheese. Or if you opt for a burrito bowl instead of a burrito. The tortillas are surprisingly high in fat and calories. But delicious.

Anonymous said...

But overall, their food is high in fat and calories, unless you split your order with one or two people.