How do you make Chipotle part of a healthy diet? (If you want to be healthy should you eat at Chipotle?) The long paragraph is taken from the NYTimes article answering the question the author poses.
Yes, you should (assuming you want to). The barbacoa, the marinated chicken, the black beans, the salsas and the chips are tasty. They’re vastly better – and only somewhat more expensive – than the fast food that Americans have endured for decades.
There’s only one problem. You shouldn’t fool yourself into thinking Chipotle is a normal part of a healthy diet. It isn’t. It’s a treat — a savory, spicy treat. Chipotle has succeeded in creating much better-tasting fast food, but they didn’t really try to create healthy fast food, whatever their marketing material may suggest. The same goes for Shake Shack, Potbelly and other growing chains.
I say go ahead and indulge intelligently.
If places like this appeal to you do the following more often:
1. Choose the salad versions instead of the burrito and sandwich.
2. Eat part of the meal for lunch and save the other portion for dinner.
3. Skip the rice or the sour cream or the beans.
Or edit all three out.
4. Indulge and just eat lightly the rest of the day.