Well lately I have started counting calories and monitoring the sodium content of the things I eat. I guess it's a "new year, new you" kind of thing. I'm pretty fit, don't get me wrong, but I have gotten by on genetics, which is not to be arrogant but rather to say: believe me, I am ANYTHING BUT HEALTHY.
Someday, it will catch up with me, all of that fast food and caffeine, and, yes, even alcohol. 2008 has me wanting to make some very serious changes in what I eat, when I eat, and how much of it I eat. I am still allowing myself to be bad, but I have set limits for when I can be bad: namely, the weekends and as a reward for personal challenges I have set for myself.
Now lets talk guidelines: According to the USDA website, Americans consuming somewhere in the ballpark of 2000 calories each day should not be consuming more than 2300mg of sodium. Sodium is bad for you in so many millions of ways, but is primarily a key contributor to things like heart disesase and stroke.
Do you know what's in the stuff you eat every day? I prefer not to think about it for the most part...
Until now. I have started asking alot of questions, and those nutritional information pamphlets they have at almost every restaurant you go into? The ones we all have laughed at and pointed a secret sauce coated finger at as we go back for that third refill of Mountain Dew? Well, I have started asking for them.
So getting back on track here, did I mention that I went to Chipotle earlier this evening? I enjoyed every bite of my Carnitas burrito. I added all the fixins' including the cheese and sour cream, because let's face it, they taste so much better that way! And when I had put it all down and washed out my mouth with Diet Coke, after crinkled up my foil wrapper and put away my tray (careful not to toss the plastic basket away aas I so often do), I marched up to the counter and politely requested the nutrition information.
The cashier gave me a blank stare as if I had just asked her a question in a foreign language. Chipotle has a masterful marketing campaign that makes its customers feel as if they are eating fresh and healthy. Surely they would have nutritional info handy. Wouldn't they?
After repeating myself for her, slowing my speech and being careful to inunciate, she responding with a hesitating "I don't know. Let me look into it." I suppose that I had asked the forbidden question or something. Because after ringing up the next customer in line, she disappeared behind the kitchen doors. I imagined her cautiously approaching a cigar-chomping manager type who promptly responded to her inquiry, "Who wants to know!??" followed by a "He wants what!???" and finally a earth shattering...
"Hell no! He can't have THAT!!!"
The nervous cashier returned and apologized. My request was just too ridiculous. She could not help me, and I left scratching my head a little. Isn't nutrition information required by law to be available for consumers?, I wondered. Oh well, it will be on their website. That's the loophole, right? Businesses can get away with not having the information at the restaurant as long as it is posted on their site. So I told myself that I would retrieve it when I got home. After all, that poor cashier was probably thinking that she just didn't get paid enough to field such bizarre and unreasonable requests such as that.
The Chipotle Web Site is one of the coolest I have ever seen. There are plenty of impressive graphics and animations to keep the eye busy. A bike floats across the screen advertising the Cycling team they proudly sponsor (again, fresh and healthy is the message!). A giant hand comes from an invisible sky to mix things up. You can build your own burrito with animated ingredients. Okay the site is not just cool, it's beyond cool.
And maybe that's what its designers are hoping: that you will be so absorbed in the coolness factor that you will fail to notice what I did...
THE NUTRITION INFORMATION IS NOT HERE EITHER!!!!!!!
So now I am getting a little perturbed because I will not be able to complete my daily spreadsheet monitoring my caloric and sodium intake. And beyond that, I am starting to believe that Chipotle Burritos are actually so unbelievably bad for you that the owners are willing to risk government sanctions and fines to avoid posting any information about them.
Apparently I am not the first person to realize this however, and I was fortunate enough to discover a site called Chipotlefan.com. The good folkes at Chipotle fan have created a nutrition calculator that will tell you exactly how many calories and valuable nutrients are in your burritos and tacos based on what you added to it. The anticipation was killing me...but not as fast as my burrito probably will...
Check it out:
..
Chipotle Fan.com
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