Chipotle's website features the coolest Flash animation description of its menu components. Many items are labeled vegetarian, and they even note that their cheese has rennet from a vegetarian source. However, we still need to know what vegetarian items are also vegan.
Hello,
I would like to visit your restaurant. Can you tell me what menu items marked vegetarian are also vegan (no animal products, i.e. dairy, cheese, etc.)? Thank you for your time in determining this.
Best,
Erin
(six burritoless days pass)
Try #1b
Hello,
This is the second time I am writing to ask what vegan options Chipotle has on their menu. Without access to ingredients lists, I cannot make this determination from what information is available on the website. Saying something has no dairy doesn't mean it is without animal products. Additionally, your website touts that there are several vegan dining options available. Can you please help me by telling me what those are?
Many thanks for your time,
Erin
Chipotle response #1:
Hello Erin,
Thank you for writing us with your question. The Tortillas, Chips, Rice, Black Beans, Fajitas, all Salsas, Guacamole, and Lettuce is all Vegan ingredients. I hope this information is helpful and we wish you many more burritoful visits.
Sincerely,
Kenwood
Chipotle
The verdict:
Tortillas are vegan
Chips are vegan
Rice is vegan
Black Beans are vegan
Fajita Vegetables are vegan
All Salsas are vegan
Guacamole is vegan
The lettuce is vegan
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Note that any time you allow someone else to be responsible for your diet, by preparing food for you, cross contamination with animal products is a risk. Some following a vegan lifestyle may choose not to dine out for this reason. I provide this blog as a guide to making the best possible food choices for those who do, and the full text of correspondence to enable individual assessment of the claims as to the vegan status of any item. As a best practice and for health, cook at home for yourself! The cultural importance of the ritual of cooking and eating for oneself or one's family should not be underestimated.
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I go straight to HQ in my best attempt to get definitive answers from the nation's most popular restaurants, seeking the answer to not only what's to eat that is vegan, but which restaurants are helpful, and which are making vegan life harder.
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Resources
- Additives: Vegan or not?
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- Fast Food Maps (Google Earth mashup)
- my del.icio.us vegan links
- Peta's guide to chain restaurants
Followers
18 comments:
Three cheers for Chipotle -- terrific food. I'm glad that they came through with a clear response.
Thank you! My husband loves Chipotle, and I get dragged there far too often. So it's nice to know what I can safely eat. :)
Chipotle is one of the few places I can go out to eat and actually feel like I've had a complete meal!
At least in my backwards neck of the woods. ;)
I usually order a burrito with:
Tortillas
Rice
Black Beans
Fajita Vegetables
Salsas
Guacamole
lettuce
So that works out :)
Are you sure about the rice? I have watched them prepare it and swear they dump a ton of butter in it and have even asked before if the rice contains dairy and they said it did. My son is very allergic to all dairy products.
This is perfect thank you :) I am going to chipotle tomorrow for the first time and I was worried about what I was going to eat
According to some research i've done, they buy their tortillas from MexGrocer... which uses lard.
I only noticed this after my cholesterol went up after weeks of eating at Chipotle almost daily. It's really disappointing, and I'm having to stop eating there cold-turkey.
I hope that I'm wrong, but wanted to pass along the info I had gathered.
Wow how potentially disappointing...you want to trust companies, but after the great scandal of '09 uncovered by Operation Pancake, it's clear you must either submit your trust and accept some level of risk, or cook using whole foods at home.
We need an undercover super hero willing to get hired by all these places so first-hand evidence can be gathered - any volunteers? :)
Chipotle is my favorite restaurant. I vary my choices between a vegetarian salad and vegetarian rice bowl (turned vegan by refusing the sour cream and cheese options).
I talked in length with one of the corporate chefs that came to help start up the local Chipotle's restaurant in my local area a few months ago. He was kind enough to share with me how they prepare some of the foods, especially the rice. (I am trying to mimic it at home. Pretty close to it but not quite there.)
The rice does not contain diary products. They use vegetable oil (I cannot remember which type because the conversation was two months ago, but it was either olive or canola), fresh cilantro, and salt.
Since all restaurants are coporate-owned, there are strict rules on how food is prepared so the quality and taste remains uniform across at all restaurants. If your local Chipotle restaurant is using butter instead of the oil, it should be reported to the corporate headquarters.
Sorry, my brain went out on me.
The rice is made with lime juice. I watched one of the cooks preparing a fresh batch of the rice. He dumped about a cup of lime, lots of cilantro, and some salt into the giant bowl of rice before mixing it. The lime juice could be mistaken for liquid butter from a distance, but it is not butter.
I thought that they were dumping butter when I saw them, too! Glad to see its lime juice :)
I wrote them this week and got this response:
Debra,
Thanks for writing. Our rice does not have butter in it. We cook our rice with soybean oil, and it is completely vegan. I hope this helps, but please let me know if you have any further questions. We hope to see you soon.
I have read on their website that the pinto beans are made with beacon.
The pinto beans are made with bacon, and they are very up front about this on their website. Always order black beans.
I once saw them squirt a bunch of sour cream into their rice, so I haven't eaten at chipotle for over 2 years! This weekend I met a friend there, and just out of curiousity I asked if the rice was vegan, and sure enough! They looked at me like I was insane for asking, but I had a burrito! I was still nervous though, that I had actually consumed dairy, but I feel much better after reading this, thanks!
Halleluiah! I saw this on their website, but wanted to verify it on a vegan blog and found yours. There's a Chipotle near my house, so this makes my new adventure into veganism much easier... thanks!
I am vegan and eat at Chipotle from time to time. We just need to be careful that they don't drag the burrito through meat, cheese or sour cream remnants on the assembly line. I ask them to wipe it down first if I notice anything. Yes, I'm a big vegan pain in the ass.
I am vegan and eat at Chipotle from time to time. I order a fajita burrito with rice, black beans, pico de gallo, guacamole, hot salsa and corn. Since the guacamole comes free with a veggie burrito, I ask them to put half in the burrito and half on the side for my chips!
I agree with Ami, my local Chipotle uses butter in the rice. When I asked the server she told me that it had dairy in it.
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