| Author | Message | ||
| Becky Unregistered guest |
I have found that Chipotle's food is unsafe for me! I have tried it on 2 occasions. Once with a burrito, and once with a burrito bowl (no tortilla). It took about 24 hours to get a reaction, but I did get one. I wasn't sure the first time, but this second time, I know it was the Chipotle. It's too bad since they claim to be fresh, natural and at least partially organic. | ||
| Deb A. Unregistered guest |
What sort of chipotle product did you use? There are the canned ones (bad, at least the ones I have seen), and then there are flakes and ground chipotles that are made from roasted and then dried jalopena peppers. Some have smoke flavoring added (bad). | ||
| Becky Unregistered guest |
Deb, This is the restaurant called "Chipotle". http://www.chipotle.com/# | ||
| Deb A. Unregistered guest |
OHHHH! Sorry! Well, you got a lesson on chipotle peppers out of it, didn't you?....unsolicited as it was.  | ||
| Becky Unregistered guest |
That's okay Deb! I'll take a lesson from you any day! | ||
| Deb A. Unregistered guest |
Thanks. I feel better now. | ||
| Patrick Unregistered guest |
Hey guys/gals, I was saddened/surprised to hear Becky say she reacted negatively to food from Chipotle. I eat a burrito from there nearly every day as I was of the understanding that the food was safe/MSG free. Of course the tomatoes, corn, sour cream, and cheese will have natural glutamate in them further released by overcooking, but I understood that no processed MSG or alternative MSG products were used. I figured the tortilla, meat, lime white rice, mild cheese and lettuce would be okay in keeping a low MSG diet/meal. Furthermore, the citric acid used is from the juice of the squeezed limes, rather than derived from corn (which is the bad citric acid as I understand). This prompted me to email Chipotle last week to get an official answer. This is what Joe Stupp of Chipotle had to say in response to my email: "Patrick, Thank you for writing us. I’m sorry it took me some time to look through all of your concerns and get back to you, but I wanted to be correct with everything I said. We do not use any MSG in any of our foods. However, many foods have naturally occurring glutamic acid, an amino acid within a protein. Glutamic acid can be "free" of the protein and in the form of glutamates, the salt or anions of glutamic acid. "Free" glutamates can be naturally found in tomatoes, cheese and other dairy foods, meats, and protein-rich foods. Our food can definitely be protein-rich and has naturally occurring "free" glutamates. Again, we do not use MSG or any MSG-related ingredients in our food or seasonings. We also do not use ingredients such as natural flavors/flavorings, autolyzed yeast extracts, and hydrolyzed proteins - or other things that are highly processed specifically to create free glutamates to enhance flavor. The only added enzyme we have in our foods is the rennet used in our cheese. Rennet, as you probably already know, is what helps make milk coagulate into what becomes cheese. Additionally there is naturally occurring citric acid in the limes we squeeze on our chips and the lime juice we add to some of our recipes for flavor (such as our cilantro lime rice, for example). There is also citric acid – added as a preservative - in the soybean oil we use in many of our recipes too. But we don’t have any of the other ingredients you mention in anything we serve. With regard to AuxiGro, none of us had ever heard of that before you mentioned it, so we’ll look into that further. I honestly have no idea at this point." Deb, Becky, and company- what do you think? Is this a meal that I could eat regularly and expect to keep my diet low of MSG, specifically processed MSG. I hope I helped out other Chipotle lovers as well with Chipotle's response. I am in the process of getting further information as regards to the flour used in the tortilla, but was told by the servers that it is wheat-free. | ||
| Di Unregistered guest |
I notice that the beans are prepared with bacon. Just my experience: I haven't ever found bacon without natural flavors added or some other FGA additive. | ||
| Di Unregistered guest |
But other than that, the menu sounds pretty safe....or should I say, relative to most other restaurants. | ||
| EmilyS Unregistered guest |
Patrick, I would say it has cleaner ingredients that other restaurants, or at least it tries to. But I personally wouldn't eat anything there until I personally looked at every label for each product (look at the label for the sour cream, the cheese, the tortilla, etc.). The best time to do this is in the middle of the week between lunch and dinner when they are slow and willing to answer your questions. | ||
| Patrick Unregistered guest |
Hey guys/gals, Thanks for your comments/replies. When I get a burrito there I skip the sour cream and corn and get the tortilla, meat (cage free raised w/o antibiotics only fresh never frozen with an MSG glaze), fresh lime rice, fresh salsa, mild cheese, and lettuce. I just got another response back from Joe Stupp at Chipotle with answers to my follow up questions. Here is the response I received: "Patrick, Sorry, it has been a long day, and I’ve had trouble getting back to everybody. Re citric acid: Our citric acid comes from fermentation of sucrose which originates from corn. However, all random tests by our supplier for corn DNA in the citric acid were negative. Re MSG preservative glaze: Nope, we don’t have anything like that, and our meats are never frozen. Re cheese: Our cheese is Monterey Jack and White Cheddar. Re our tortillas: I’m not sure which ones you mean, but our large burrito tortillas and our small soft taco tortillas are made from wheat. They do definitely have glutens in them, and there is bleached flour in them. Our corn tortillas for our crispy tacos and our chips do not have wheat, gluten, or bleached flour. Re our rice: There is no glutamic coating on our rice. I hope this helps! -Joe " So I was completely unaware that the tortillas were made from wheat, bleached flour. The workers at the store said otherwise. Having gluten in the tortillas surely will raise the free glutamate levels. Again, I don't react to foods containing free glutamate after eating them, in terms of specific, noticeable reactions on point with eating MSG. However, I do have long term issues that I am hoping to get rid of by eating MSG free. So I guess I will stick to the the corn tortillas that don't have wheat or bleached flour. Please tell me what you guys/gals think. | ||
| EmilyS Unregistered guest |
Again, I would need to see the list of ingredients in a product before I ate it. The best question to ask is "I'm wondering if your chicken is safe for me to eat, would you mind reading the list of ingredients in the chicken for me?" That way you can hear what the ingredients are instead of them telling you they are safe. The chicken may have natural chicken broth added to the meat which most people not living an MSG life would think is just fine but for us it's not. I would also want to see the ingredients in the tortillas. We have a Mexican restaurant here that makes their flour tortillas on site and I can eat them without any problems. Hope this helps. | ||
| LisaS Unregistered guest |
I was glad to find this post since we eat at Chipotle a lot and I was going to email them. My son is not super sensitive, but he has never had a reaction to their food. However, we don't get the tortilla for him, because it is made with baking powder that contains aluminum (I checked a few months ago) and he has too much aluminum in his system (according to a hair test). We get the bowls. | ||
| LisaS Unregistered guest |
Ok, this is really not about Chipotle but take a look at this....it could explain why people would react to the flour tortillas that have aluminum in them. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7902184 | ||
| Di Unregistered guest |
LisaS, Very interesting pubmed article, thanks. Can you tell us how you came across it. What search, if any, did you do? | ||
| LisaS Unregistered guest |
Di, That would require me having a memory, LOL! I used google and I think I googled "aluminum glutamate"? I can't remember why I did this (some combination of knowing my son has aluminum and looking into Chipotle's MSG content triggered my brain), but I will say that most of my searches lately have been "<ingredient> glutamate" (like yesterday - "guar gum glutamate" - apparently according to Blaylock's book it's a similar compound - ack - another thing to think about). I did note that the study is from 1993... Here's another interesting one that I'm not sure how to interpret, but definitely suggests something is going on with these two substances: http://grande.nal.usda.gov/ibids/index.php?mode2=detail&origin=ibids_references&therow=7146 Here's another interesting one...this one was one of those "you have to be a member to see this article" so I googled the article title and someone else had the abstract for free. This is the reverse of the original: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WFG-45FBXNH-6K&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1025756418&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=1ff1e8a393ce9b67b152d620f7390989 Oooh, you got me curious...googling "aluminum glutamates NMDA" has some interesting results, but I have to do other things before I can look more. Plus I suppose I should move this to another thread.... | ||
| Di Unregistered guest |
Interesting. That was smart of you to google the article title when you "Had to be a member..." to view it. |
