Chipotle is Giving Us Too Much Food

You could say this about pretty much any restaurant in the entire world...really...do you think it's just Chipotle employees who "overestimate" their servings? They're a bunch of kids working for minimum wage at a restaurant...not sure what it to be expected here. I would think that one would understand that even if amounts are posted on a website, when it comes to eating out, it's really a crap shoot as to what you're getting...I pretty much chalk any meal out to around 1000 calories or so.

This is not common sense for a lot of people. Many people, particularly if new to counting, will take nutritional info on an official website or in-store chart as fact.

Too often people run up in these threads, guns blazing, and forget that this isn't MFP-Advanced. This place is swarming with people who don't consider things that us experienced dieters (sorry, lifestylers for all the extra sensitive) take for granted.

Several people have already posted in this thread alone saying "thanks for the heads up".

Since we're blowing everyone's minds, and everyone says they're going to avoid restaurants:

The USDA allows for 20% error on packaged foods nutrition labels. So the error you see in restaurants exists in your cupboards too. Some things will be lower than you think, some will be higher, and hopefully they will cancel out. EVERYTHING in nutrition seems to be an estimate from TDEE to calorie burns to calorie intake. Do what you think will work. Try it for 4-6 weeks. If it doesn't work readjust. No reason to fear packaged foods or restaurants or avoid them for the rest of your life.

Careful - I said the same thing and the resident white knights charged at me

This thread was largely messy and disappointing. (Much like a Chipotle's burrito bowl haha (I've never even had Chipotle ;_; ))

Thanks OP for the sentiment. I don't think you were being whiny or you need to man up, just that you realized something that you didn't realize before and wanted to share your info with others.

To others reading this far down (because you obviously can't turn away from train wrecks), don't let stuff like this turn you off from eating out. Just realize that calorie counts are basically estimates, even those on pre-packaged foods, and especially those at restaurants. If it means that much to you to measure all your food EXACTLY then hole up all alone in your small kitchen with your scale and weigh all your bread slices and strawberries, and chicken bones after you eat the meat. Don't have friends or family over ever, because they'll think you have an eating disorder and you don't need those haters trying to sabotage your weight loss!!

If that sounds terrible then realize you're not going to get things perfect, weigh at home and try to eyeball where necessary. Slow and steady wins the race.

ETA Also this is not a race, this is your life so don't view it as a competition because once you do you LOSE!!!

You could say this about pretty much any restaurant in the entire world...really...do you think it's just Chipotle employees who "overestimate" their servings? They're a bunch of kids working for minimum wage at a restaurant...not sure what it to be expected here. I would think that one would understand that even if amounts are posted on a website, when it comes to eating out, it's really a crap shoot as to what you're getting...I pretty much chalk any meal out to around 1000 calories or so.

This is not common sense for a lot of people. Many people, particularly if new to counting, will take nutritional info on an official website or in-store chart as fact.

Too often people run up in these threads, guns blazing, and forget that this isn't MFP-Advanced. This place is swarming with people who don't consider things that us experienced dieters (sorry, lifestylers for all the extra sensitive) take for granted.

Several people have already posted in this thread alone saying "thanks for the heads up".

Since we're blowing everyone's minds, and everyone says they're going to avoid restaurants:

The USDA allows for 20% error on packaged foods nutrition labels. So the error you see in restaurants exists in your cupboards too. Some things will be lower than you think, some will be higher, and hopefully they will cancel out. EVERYTHING in nutrition seems to be an estimate from TDEE to calorie burns to calorie intake. Do what you think will work. Try it for 4-6 weeks. If it doesn't work readjust. No reason to fear packaged foods or restaurants or avoid them for the rest of your life.

Crazy talk

The reason the OP is getting so much slack I suspect is because of the confirmations of the Chipotle worker later in the thread. As the employee points out, a SERVING per Chipotle (read as "the numbers we use to calculate our website-posted nutritional info") is calculated in oz. and translated to spoonfuls/spoon sizes.

Read what the OP said:

I just contacted Chipotle to verify how many servings of each item are supposed to go into a burrito bowl

So the OP isn't giving made up information since this is the info he was given by the company. The fact that a supposed employee challenges this later on is irrelevent to why everyone is being so rude to the OP. This is the General DIET and Weight LOSS Help forum. The OP gave the information in an attempt to help others. The people being ****s about it are just showing what horrible and nasty creatures they are and there is no excuse for it.

Did you really just call people out for forum behavior you believe is inappropriate...

...by calling them "horrible and nasty creatures"?

:huh:



Surely you see the hypocrisy in this, right?

Hi Jof.

I know, my god! He wishes someone luck and gets ripped a new one. Looks like Johnny is being a little sensitive!

I am literally reading this while eating a giant Chipotle burrito. Get at me.

Lol love this

If I had just strictly been on a Chipotle diet and planned on losing half a pound a week, I would actually be gaining weight. Not cool.

Are you trying to be Jared Fogle who lost all that weight eating at Subway :huh: ?!?
More food for your money...eat 1/2 and have the other 1/2 for another meal :bigsmile:
What are you complaining about...its a win/win deal
Take your food and run w/ it :laugh:

They are giving you more than the nutrition facts say. That is the problem. You think your burrito bowl is 480 calories, but it ends up being over 70 calories most times.

Well, I (for one!) Agree with you. It is a problem. When a restaurant claims a dish has a certain number of calories and it's in fact much higher...it leads the consumer to make assumptions about their diet.
This is especially a problem for people like me, who only have say, 1300 calories per day allotted.

They are giving you more than the nutrition facts say. That is the problem. You think your burrito bowl is 480 calories, but it ends up being over 70 calories most times.

Well, I (for one!) Agree with you. It is a problem. When a restaurant claims a dish has a certain number of calories and it's in fact much higher...it leads the consumer to make assumptions about their diet.
This is especially a problem for people like me, who only have say, 1300 calories per day allotted.

It's a no win situation for restaurant chains since it comes down to the cooks. I used to work at a Taco Bell. Every item on their menu has a weight it is supposed to be. There is a digital food scale on the line at the end to check the items weight. If the employee makes the item at the correct weight, then the calorie count on the website should be fairly close to accurate. Now, where I worked the scale would only ever get used in 2 situations. One, when they were being evaluated. During evaluations employee's on the food line were expected to know the correct weight for every item on the menu and expected to be able to make it at the correct weight. Two, would be when they were learning to make new food items. Any other time you had 2 types of employees that would work on line. One would only give you about half of what you were supposed to get and the other would be overly "generous" with the portioning.

They are giving you more than the nutrition facts say. That is the problem. You think your burrito bowl is 480 calories, but it ends up being over 70 calories most times.

Well, I (for one!) Agree with you. It is a problem. When a restaurant claims a dish has a certain number of calories and it's in fact much higher...it leads the consumer to make assumptions about their diet.
This is especially a problem for people like me, who only have say, 1300 calories per day allotted.

It's a no win situation for restaurant chains since it comes down to the cooks. I used to work at a Taco Bell. Every item on their menu has a weight it is supposed to be. There is a digital food scale on the line at the end to check the items weight. If the employee makes the item at the correct weight, then the calorie count on the website should be fairly close to accurate. Now, where I worked the scale would only ever get used in 2 situations. One, when they were being evaluated. During evaluations employee's on the food line were expected to know the correct weight for every item on the menu and expected to be able to make it at the correct weight. Two, would be when they were learning to make new food items. Any other time you had 2 types of employees that would work on line. One would only give you about have of what you were supposed to get and the other would be "generous" with the portioning.

:laugh:

Just thinking back to my some of my "side of rice" orders with like twenty rice grains floating around the bottom of the container. And yet I choked down the food and begrudgingly logged it as "120 calories". Geeeeez Mr. Teenager, give a girl some FOOD!! :sad:

Do none of you people have Freebirds? :huh:

Absolutely. Got it right here.

I feel dumber after reading this thread

I'm pretty certain my IQ has gone down a few points as well.

2) Let's not forget that if you're being health-conscious, you're probably not getting sour cream/excessive guac/etc on your burrito. So everything in the darn thing is actually quite healthy. Solid grains/lower GI carbs from brown rice, great fiber from your bean choice, an utterly STELLAR protein:fat ratio for any food, let alone fast food (roughly 5:2, which beats even an aggressive Macro balance of 50C:25F:25P), and a few USDA servings of veggies depending on your preferences.

What is inherently unhealthy about "sour cream/excessive guac"?

Also, what is inherently more healthy about "brown rice" compared to "white rice"?

Sour Cream - 60% Saturated (unhealthy) Fat - In a Chipotle serving you're looking at least 30-33% of your DV for the heart-unhealthy type of fat... and if there's anything that I've noticed Chipotle tends to overdeliver on it's the sour cream. Note that a serving on Chipotle's site is 2 oz. (and we've been informed that the spoons are a 3.5).

Guac - High Fat as well - often 1/3+ of your total DV (16g per serving, though as it is avocado based it is likely that a higher ratio of healthy fats is present)

Brown Rice vs. White Rice - https://www.google.com/#q=brown+rice+vs+white+rice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_rice Read the nutritional breakdowns for yourself. General talking points include less refinement = better whole grains. Significantly improved GI profile from the better ratio of total carbs:fiber carbs. White rice processing removes the bran oil which may help lower LDL cholesterol. The refinement process also strips several vitamins and minerals, most notably magnesium, manganese, and selenium. Another huge benefit of Chipotle brown rice vs white is that you reduce your sodium intake by 420 mg (~25% DV) when you make the switch!!

Wait, what???

:huh:

So then, what is inherently unhealthy about saturated fat?



As for the rice...sorry, but I don't find your evidence compelling. Here's some comparably-sourced information from the other side:

http://www.details.com/blogs/daily-details/2013/06/health-is-brown-rice-really-better-than-white-rice-myth.html
http://ancestral-nutrition.com/why-white-rice-is-healthier-than-brown-rice/
http://butterbeliever.com/brown-rice-vs-white-rice-which-is-healthy/


Clearly, certain myths (such as "saturated fat is bad" and "brown rice is healthy and white rice is unhealthy" are remarkably resilient.

Your evidence is orders of magnitude even less compelling. The first of those 3 links provides no scientific argument or valid scientific methodology for its "myth-busting conclusions" whatsoever. A statement such as "Many nutrition experts demonize white rice, potatoes, pasta, white bread, etc. because it's an easy rule to remember and grasp, but these foods are really only a problem if you overeat them, which usually happens when you slather them in salty, fatty, sugary sauces—also making them a vehicle for salt, sugar, and fat." is completely disingenuous. Because some people add other foods/toppings that are bad for you isn't even a valid argument for a comparison of 2 separate classes of foods.

"Usually the more unprocessed a food, the better, because it contains more nutrients, but in this case the unprocessed component of the brown-rice grain contains both nutrients (good things for us to consume) and some antinutrients (maybe not a good thing for us to consume), which are what the plant uses as a defense system against pests." might be even worse, because they give no supporting evidence to the supposed antinutrient contents of the brown rice. It is even specifically qualified as "maybe not a good thing" because they genuinely don't know, whereas we widely accept that processing is bad for our food.

As for saturated fat, there has been precisely 1 study that I have found through extensive research (because you can't just take 1 site on the Internet's word, 98% of nutritional advice sites are quack) that touts butter (not all saturated fat mind you) as a benefit in your diet (in moderation of course). Yet one of your links is suddenly proclaiming it a superfood?!? Surely that draws some skepticism from you? There is also the known link between Saturated fat and Cholesterol, of which the LDL Pattern B variety has a basically unquestioned negative effect.

I will say there is some interesting evidence I have found as to the links between Sat. Fat & Heart Disease in Europe, and going back to white rice sites love to tout the use of white rice in often 3rd world Asian nations as proof that it's not bad for you. Problem is the USA isn't a 3rd world country and we're not engaging in the same lifestyle as the people of the Asia-Pacific, who may often be toiling in fields or doing other various strenuous labor activities compared to our vastly higher ratio of desk job. There is still something to be said for environment and activity rates in our metabolisms.

For me personally, I have had my cardiologist specifically recommend I stay away from Sat. Fat due to its increase in heart disease risk. Again, I'm going to trust a licensed medical doctor over a website publishing early studies and making loud generalizations meant to influence. My doctor giving me advice isn't propaganda. Might that advice eventually become outdated? Perhaps, but surely one should trust the professional with the actual scientific background, who pieces together multiple sources of evidence. You can see the dissent even within the AHA here: http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20140320/dietary-fats-q-a?page=2

Maybe you should read the thread or at least a page or the first post because the issue is not personal responsibility over how much you eat.

read the thread before posting a comment? Crazy talk.

Not me. I just assume that when I jump into a thread on page 15 without reading, that whatever insight I have to share has not already been offered...and discussed...and debated...and that the conversation has not evolved any at all in those previous 15 pages.