ChipotleWell, those burritos were good while they lasted.
But, thanks to The New York Times, all of our future Chipotle trips are permanently marred. The Grey Lady decided to play a fun little game titled "At Chipotle, How Many Calories Do People Really Eat?" The answer, in short, is a crap ton.
The typical order, which is a meat burrito filled with cheese, salsa, lettuce, sour cream, beans, and rice, racks up about 1,070 calories. While that sounds a little scary for a lunch in and of itself, it's not even the worst part. According to the paper's calculations, most Chipotle orders also contain almost a full day's worth of sodium and three-quarters of your daily saturdated fat recommendation. Yum!
Of course, restaurant-goers aren't always eating the "typical" order. There's not a soul out there who hasn't stumbled out the door to Chipotle in a hungover daze, desperate for the biggest, greasiest burrito this side of the Mississippi to soak up last night's mistakes. By the Times' calcuations, that would be 95% of you, and said burritos are worth about 1,700 calories or more. So, if you'd ever like to order a barbacoa burrito (or a steak burrito, or a chicken burrito) with chips and guac again, we deeply apologize.
If the idea of consuming more than a day's worth of calories in a single meal is too much for you to bear, the paper of record did suggest a few ordering options that will keep you under 600 big ones. To stay in this range, you're going to have to learn to be satisfied by, say, a veggie burrito bowl without guac, or steak tacos garnished with nothing but pico and sour cream. We never said this was going to be easy.