Mariana Cotlear takes issue with James McWilliams' claim that a McDonald's Big Mac is healthier than a Chipotle burrito:
This is real food. This is food that doesn’t make you feel sick after eating it. This is food that actually fills you up and doesn’t produce a sugar spike which will make you crave more in a few hours. I don’t think there’s any way you can say the same for the BigMac.
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And yet: This may get me into trouble, but if you are going to over eat, I’d rather you have one thousand calories of real food than one thousand calories of processed food. So in the end, I’d say that Chipotle is still offering us a better choice than McDonalds.
Not to diminish the importance of accuracy, but setting aside the sustainable-food argument, I ultimately feel like this is like picking a more comfortable method of execution. No one expecting to lose weight or stay healthy should be eating either at Chipotle or McDonald's. And while Cotlear is right that you can find ways to eat at Chipotle and consume a sensible number of calories, that's not why people go to Chipotle. You go to Chipotle for the giant burrito.
(Flickr/Adam)
