The Best Low Carb Fast Food Meal I’ve Ever Had: Chipotle Mexican Grill

Is Chipotle Low Carb?

As Judith Viorst memorably said, it’s hard to be hip over thirty, and I passed that mark over two decades ago. Hip R Not Us. Too, I cook so much, writing cookbooks and all, that I rarely eat out, and I certainly don’t have a fast food habit. Every now and then, when I’m on the road or running errands and find myself ravenous I’ll stop and get a fast food grilled chicken salad, or possibly a bunless burger, but I eat fast food less than once a month, and think of it as better than nothing, but not much.

Chipotle Mexican Grill in Bloomington, IN
Chipotle Mexican Grill in Bloomington, IN (photo courtesy of yelp.com

For these reasons, while I knew there was a restaurant called Chipotle in uptown Bloomington, Indiana (where I live), I had no clue it served fast food, or that it was part of a national chain, for that matter. I had, of course, assumed from the name that it served something Mexican or Tex-Mex, but other than that, it was just “that restaurant next to the uptown thrift shop.”

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in the salon with foil all over my head, and happened to pick up a recent issue of Time. It included an article about the Chipotle Mexican Grill food chain. Turns out the chain is growing rapidly, with restaurants popping up like mushrooms after a summer rain. I had missed a consumer phenomenon.

Chipotle Mexican Grill’s Success

More interesting, it turns out that quite a lot of Chipotle Mexican Grill’s success is due to the fact that they have increasingly used superior ingredients — superior for health, the environment, and the animals, all three. They favor family farms. As much as they can, they serve meat raised with no hormones nor antibiotics, and from animals that are not raised in Confined Animal Feedlot Operations (CAFOs). They seek out locally raised produce. And 100% of their sour cream and 65% of their cheese comes from pastured cows.

This means better food for their customers, of course. More broadly, by creating a larger market for small, local family farms and their agricultural products, they are likely to increase the number and success of such farms, and, in the long run, make these foods more widely available and more affordable. Too, this means they are reducing the environmental impact of the food they sell. To my way of thinking, this is a win-win-win-win situation, those winners being the Chipotle corporation, their customers, the farmers they do business with, and the society (and planet) at large. Nicer for those pigs who are being raised outdoors instead of on concrete, and for the cows grazing in the sunshine, too.

All of which counts for naught if the food sucks. But the food most definitely does not suck.

I had to go uptown today anyway, to see the chiropractor and return my library books, and on the way into town I found myself hungry. Since Chipotle is all of a block from the library, I figured it was a good time to stop in and give the food a try.

Speaking of hip people under thirty, my local Chipotle is just a block off the Indiana University campus, and the freshmen moved in this week. The place was jammed with beautiful teenagers, along with a whole squad of campus security cadets. I’m pretty sure I was the oldest person in the place by at least two decades. While I waited in line I had plenty of time to peruse the menu options: burritos, burrito bowls, tacos both soft and crispy, and salads. The proteins offered were chicken, steak, barbacoa, or carnitas. They also had beans, both vegetarian and cooked with bacon, but I wasn’t interested in those. Other add-ins included fajita-style peppers and onions, tomatillo-and-chili salsa, fresh pico-de-gallo-style salsa, sour cream, shredded cheese, and guacamole.

But Is Chipotle Mexican Grill’s Menu Low-Carb?

I ordered a salad, of course, with a hefty whack of carnitas (Mexican braised pork). On it, I had tomatillo-and-red-chili salsa, pico, sour cream, and a very generous scoop of guacamole. And you know what? My Low Carb Chipotle meal was great. Really great. The romaine was super-fresh, and the pork was moist, flavorful, and meltingly tender. The salsa and guacamole were excellent as well. The whole thing cost less than $7. I could easily have ordered a similar salad at a sit-down Mexican restaurant and paid at least 50% more, and would have paid it gladly. This really was food worthy of a not-fast-food restaurant. The difference was not the quality of the food, but waiting in line and the utilitarian atmosphere of the place. Since when are fast food joints celebrated for their atmosphere, anyway?

The Chipotle website says that all of their food except the flour tortillas is wheat-free, although, of course, there is always the risk of trace cross-contamination. Too, the only soy in their food is in the form of soy oil — not a great ingredient, by any means, but at least not a source of soy isoflavones or phytates. Turns out the carnitas are the one meat on the menu with no soy oil added; I just happened to pick them because I love pork, but this would be enough reason for me to choose them again. However, Chiptole’s online nutrition calculator puts the total fat content of the chicken and steak at 6.5 grams per serving, and in the barbacoa at 7 grams per serving. This includes the naturally-occurring fat in meat, so not all of it is soy oil. This is not enough to keep me from eating these meats.

As for carb count, the chicken and carnitas tie for lowest carb, at 1 gram per serving, the steak and the barbacoa have 2 grams. The nutrition calculator tells me my whole salad had 25 grams of carb, with 12 grams of fiber, for net carb count of 13 grams, not bad for a whole highly-satisfying meal. Still, it turns out that the red tomatillo salsa cost me 8 grams (4 fiber); I’ll skip it next time and just add Tabasco.

All told, my lunch at Chipotle was by far the most satisfying fast food experience I have ever had, with food that was both wonderfully tasty and nutritionally superior. I may have missed Chipotle Mexican Grill up until now, but you can bet I’ll be going back again.

Check Also

Things Take Time Podcast

How’s Your New Year’s Resolution? Remember Things Take Time – CarbSmart Podcast Episode 6

So how are those Low-Carb New Year's resolutions coming? I'd like to add one to them if you don't mind. Be patient. Remember Things Take Time. Impatience is the death of most diet and exercise regimens, whether undertaken for the new year or at any other time. In our podcast, Dana Carpender examines the expectations of Low-Carb Resolutions and how to turn them into Low-Carb Reality.

13 comments

  1. Hi Dana!
    I’m glad you wrote this. Another thing that Chipotle Mexican Grill did was to make an interesting commercial that showed an animated farmer doing sustainable things. It hardly mentioned the restaurant name, but those who care know who did it. I have never been to one of these, though one exists in my small town. I knew about it, now I should visit it!
    Thanks again.

  2. Did you not notice that a Chipotle burrito has 1,200 calories?

    • I didn’t have a burrito, nor did I have all of the usual ingredients of a burrito in my salad. However, what I care about is that I had a meal that fit in beautifully with my nutritional parameters, that also tasted great and didn’t cost an arm and a leg. One of the beauties of a low carb diet is that if I eat a huge whack of calories, I’m simply not hungry again for a longer period of time. The day I ate at Chipotle, I was there around 4 pm, and didn’t have another meal that day.

      • Just checked the Chipotle Nutrition Calculator. The salad you described would have had 530 calories, not outrageous. I love Chipotle for just that reason.

  3. Moe’s Grill is a very similar concept, and I know they advocate also for humanely raised animal products, I am not sure if they use local farms. Their food is also very good, and about the same price as Chipotle.

  4. We love Chipotle, it is a favorite for us too!

  5. Thanks for the informative article. I have often wondered if they had anything I could eat. The mexican restaurant I go to only has a Shrimp Salad I can eat. I will try this restaurant now.

  6. Thank you I’m visiting my mom in Southern California so we went today. I too had the carnitas salad with a side of guacamole and a side of sourcreme. It was delisious. My mom has lived here for years and never has gone till today she said ” this is my new favorite place to eat” Thanks again for the great article Dana.

  7. Thanks Dana! I’m going there for lunch today to celebrate the 30 pounds I’ve lost eating low carb! Fifteen more to go, then I’m on maintenance. Also, just downloaded the kindle version of your slow cooker book. Read a bunch of recipes last night. The only problem is what to make first? I’ll give a good review on Amazon after I’ve tried a few. This may actually be the first slow cooker cookbook I’ve purchased that I’ll keep. Everything sounds sooooooo good!

  8. Hi, I got excited when I discovered that there were branches in London.
    Looking at reviews, however, it seems that only the name was transferred. The ethos fails somewhat as the prices translate $$ into ££ ($7 should be £4.42 not $6.95!) Reviews by expat Americans indicate that the food quality is lower too. Bah!

  9. Today I bought another of Dana’s books, “300 low carb, slow cooker recipes”. I already bought her book
    “15 minutes, low carb recipes” a few weeks ago. Over those weeks, I had been slowly collecting some of the less common food items Dana recommended to make her recipes work best. I don’t know why there are sometime complaints by customers who want to become dieters, but don’t want to put any effort into changing what it is they will need to eat and how they are going to get that food. Somehow, if the new cooking items are scarce in the customer’s favorite grocery, it behooves them to shop around a little in other groceries or on the internet. Once some frequently used, highly helpful food items are gathered in the beginning, the customer will notice a rapid decline in what “strange” items are still needed. Ironically, the one item that shows up frequently in Dana’s first book, above, was chipotle peppers with adobo sauce. I’d just congratulated myself when, on reading Dana’s new book, I had bought, among other things, small cans of the peppers on reading the first book, and felt “smart” at seeing duplication of use in the second book. One down on the shopping list. That dish was the first I was going to cook and then I see here that Dana was happy to see the chain restaurant she had never eaten in and it turned into is named, “Chipotle Mexican Grill”. The restaurant meets so many of Dana’s
    requirements for low carb dining. Menu items in Chipotles undoubtedly will taste a lot like Dana’s Chipotles dishes ! !

  10. Chipotle will also dazzle you if you tell them you are gluten sensitive! I was travelling with a friend who deals with UC and cannot have any gluten… the Rockwall, TX Chipotle staff removed aprons, gloves, CUTTING AND PREP SURFACES, washed up and then began prepping her order on entirely fresh cutting boards with fresh aprons and gloves that came from sealed plastic wrapping! I was so thankful, as that two minute switcheroo made it possible for my friend to travel in comfort and not be sick from cross-contamination.

  11. ANother little known fact about Chipotle is that everything is stainless steel and a bit utilitarian for a good reason. Every night they wheel everything out and powerwash all of the surfaces. Making Chipotle one of the cleanest eating establishments and commercial fast food kitchen out there! Love that place 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.