When it comes to eating healthy, Chipotle is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside a flour tortilla and pretty much drowning in sour cream. They offer sweet interactive calorie-counting graphics, claim to use only non-GMO ingredients, and definitely use only hippie fonts. They also serve burritos the approximate size and density of a regulation football and offer some meals that contain a full day's worth of sodium and about enough calories to nourish a horse. The messages are a little muddled, is what we're saying.
In fact, back in February, The New York Times scared the guac out of the Internet by finding that a "typical" Chipotle order (say, a meat burrito with beans, cheese, and sour cream) contains about 1,070 calories. Calorie-intake guidelines vary wildly by person, but in a lot of cases one lousy lunch can contain more than half of what most humans should ingest in a day.
So we set out to compare the experience of eating Chipotle's lowest-cal offering (as determined by Important Internet Research) with that of its highest—not for a quantitative measurement, mind you, but to see what it felt like emotionally.
DAY ONE: HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?• 12 p.m.: Strolling into a Chipotle with the intent to go low-cal feels obscene, like, what the hell am I even doing here? If low-cal were my goal, wouldn't I be cutting up fresh tomatoes from my dad's garden? It seems like a long drive for a pre-emptively minimalist dining experience.
• 12:02 p.m.: Make mental note of Chick-fil-A across the parking lot as a possible Plan B.
• 12:04 p.m.: According to Chipotle's own calculator and the frankly shocking amount of Internet research dedicated to Chipotle calorie-counting, my best low-cal bet was a salad with steak, black beans, fajita veggies, and fresh tomato salsa. ("Do you want any dressing?" asked the first of my nineteen servers. NOPE. LEAVE IT BARE. I AM A PROFESSIONAL.) Total count (says the calculator): roughly 350 calories.
• 12:05 p.m.: NO SODA FOR ME, THANKS, I'LL JUST HAVE WATER from that little nozzle under the lemonade I can never find. Calories: Still holding steady at 350.
• 12:05 p.m.: You know what? This looks like a meal. I'm not sure if I was expecting some pocket-sized airline-style food nugget, but this is substantial. It also smells fantastic, leading me to believe I must have fucked something up.
• 12:08 p.m.: It is substantial! I have ordered a substantial, filling, 350-calorie meal! I smugly congratulate myself silently (and in one case out loud), mocking the spherical Wall-E people around me all snorfing down horns o'plenty filled with carbs and dairy while I improve my body with salad. I'm also reading Neil Gaiman on a paper cup, which, thanks to my children, is the most actual-author reading I've done in, like, six months. Thanks for expanding my horizons, suburban burrito chain!
• 12:23 p.m.: What the hell? I'm getting full! I'm even winding down a little! Which is too bad, as I'd just started reading a new Jonathan Safran Foer cup, but whatever.
• 12:25 p.m.: Short version: That worked. It was pretty filling. I'm driving home happy and satiated! And for just 350 calories, which is usually what I find in just my toppings! SORRY, CHICK-FIL-A, I WON'T BE NEEDING ANY OF YOUR RELIGIOUS NUGGETS AFTER ALL.
• 1:30 p.m.: Never mind. I'm starving.
DAY TWO: DEATH BY BURRITO• 9 a.m.: This is a big day, so to prepare, I have very little breakfast and don't drink water for a few hours before. This is science, dammit.
• 10:30 a.m.: Man, I'm hungry. Totally could use a Pop-Tart, but NO. I REMAIN STEADFAST.
• 12 p.m.: To find Chipotle's most calorific offering, because I'm such a big believer in Journalism, I go with the Times's recommendation, and by "recommendation" I'm pretty sure I mean "warning." The Times's viral video/story "What 2,000 Calories Looks Like" suggested a carnitas burrito (945 calories), chips and guacamole (770), and a Coke (276). Chipotle's calculator has the burrito at 1070 and the chips and guac at 800.
• 12:01 p.m.: Couple things about that: The burrito is actually not that bad for you. The carnitas burrito with black beans runs about a totally manageable 630 calories, but you add the green-tomatillo salsa, rice, black beans, lettuce, cheese, and sour cream (and, in my case, extra sour cream), and before long you're in business. Throw in chips and guac and a chum bucket of Coke big enough to have a story written on it and you can get to 2,000 with frightening ease.
• 12:05 p.m.: The burrito arrives, packed in such a manner that rice is exploding out of the side of it, like that picture of the anaconda that consumed an alligator. One thing becomes immediately clear: Finishing this will probably require some additional people.
• 12:09 p.m.: Four minutes in, I realize I have no idea what the hell carnitas are. Make note to research that later on.
• 12:12 p.m.: I'm pretty sure that was just a solid forkful of sour cream. Sweet.
• 12:20 p.m.: There's more sweating than I might have expected. I also realize both that I need to go running tonight and that there's no way I'm going running tonight. There will only be sedentary digestion on the floor.
• 12:28 p.m.: You know what the worst part is? Finishing the drink, ladling another half-bucketful of Coke onto an already-full space.
• 12:30 p.m.: There's a big blank space where my meal used to be: I have slain the burrito, the bag of chips, the guac mini-tub, and the enormous Coke. I'm sitting triumphantly, plastic fork aloft, yet I feel oddly empty, probably because everybody's looking at me and my fork. Because here's the screwy part of this: This didn't feel like a feat or some physical challenge. It's not like Chipotle covers its walls in the Man v. Food-style pictures you get when you eat a three-pound burger or a cake made of chili fries or whatever. My 2,000-calorie lunch is, by many accounts, a kinda standard order. There are fifteen guys in here eating the same thing. No one looked at me funny when I asked for more sour cream, or made them swap my small drink for a large. This is simply the daily course of a Tuesday lunch.
Eating a 2K-calorie burrito is obviously a poor decision. I have to say, though, that a famishing 350-calorie lunch is not a realistic move for most guys either. While the whole concept of moderation screams NO FUN, in Chipotle, as in life, living on the extremes sounds great but eventually hurts your stomach.
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