I’ve seen some customers pile on every single topping they have and it must be 1,200 calories bowl. But you can’t stop people from pigging out. Chipolte leaves it completely up to the customer to customize their order.

I am grateful to Chipolte for including nutritional info with clear cut transparency. When I realized the tortilla that goes in the burrito was almost 300 calories, I realized I needed to stick to ordering the bowls. I don’t eat white flour anyway, so that made it an easy decision for me.

I get to pick and choose what goes into my meal, not Chipolte in some insidious scheme to turn us all into lard bucket tubbies!

Here is my advice for calorie conscious folks – order the vegetarian bowl without rice – make the foundation of the bowl lots of lettuce and cilantro. Black beans and pinto beans (loads of fiber and it makes you feel full) generous with the salsa (i like the mild version). I always ask for extra tomatoes, pile it on ‘cos veggies have few calories. The vegetarian bowl comes with avocado, but the portion size of guacamole serving is TINY, maybe 1 1/2 tablespoons – so I order a double and pay an extra $1.90 for it- avocado is high in fat, but it is the heart healty Omega 3 fat and it has fiber, plus in this spartan vegetarian bowl you need an extra bit of avocado to give it “oomph”. I don’t load it down with lots of cheese and sour cream to keep it lower in calories. Make it a vegan bowl and it is low cal – if you are hungering for some lower calorie animal protein – the serving size of sour cream isn’t much – it’s only a tablespoon size AND they water down the sour cream so much, I doubt there are more than 100 calories in a serving – it adds some zip to the vegan version of the bowl.

Skip ordering a beverage – I always ask for an empty cup which I fill up with their sliced lemon wedges and ice water. Not only is my beverage FREE, it has about 2 calories just from the lemon squeezed. I think (?) the ice water in the beverage dispenser machine is probably purified water? I live in Sacramento and our municipal is fluoridated, chlorinated and tastes just AWFUL, whereas the water at Chipolte is lovely, like spring water.

The only bone I have to pick with Chipolte is their brown rice is coated in GMO canola oil – their chips are fried in GMO canola oil – but it is MY CHOICE not to eat that stuff. I never eat the veggie relish because it has corn kernels in it and I am pretty sure it is probably GMO corn, since it is conventional and not organic corn – plus all the stuff in that corn/veggie relish you can get form eating the salsa and tomatoe options. I also wish they would offer a whole grain tortilla for the burrito wrap. If I’m going to consume almost 300 calories to wrap a burrito, it least it should be whole grain and have some fiber to justify all that carb! Here is the problem….70% of Americans LOVE their junk food and would revolt if they were forced to eat a whole grain tortilla in the burrito – but just if there was a whole grain option so I had something to eat other than that white flour empty calorie burrito wrap.

The other problem I have with Chipolte is their limited menu – just a bowl or a burrito. BORING!

I’ve eaten there maybe nine zillion times in the last 4 years, I am getting burned out on lack of menu options. The new menu item sofritos isn’t that good – WAY TOO SPICY, I asked for a sample – it was 1/4 of a teaspoon size sample and it blew the tounge out of my mouth. I had to drink 2 glasses of ice water with lemon to cool off from the over spiced sofritos. At least they are trying to come up with something new, but tofu is just so darn tasteless, I think they thought sofritos has to be drenched in tons of hot, hot spices?