If you visit your local Indianapolis Qdoba, you may notice a sign in the window that notes that Qdoba was voted "Best Healthy Food" (or something along those lines) by the readers of Nuvo (Or was it Intake? It doesn't really matter) once upon a time.
It's entirely possible that my version of healthy is a little more extreme than what most people consider healthy, but it's also entirely possible that people really have no idea what they're eating. Because I like to think I'm smarter than everyone else, I'm going to go with the second assumption. I'm also miserable because of a lack of lunch choices to fit my diet, so I like to ruin things for everyone else as well.
I've found that you can never trust food on looks alone. Let's try on a Qdoba burrito.
Selected Items: 13" Flour Tortilla, Cilantro Lime Rice, Black Beans, Chicken, Corn Salsa
Doesn't look too bad, does it? There's nothing there that screams "head for the treadmill". But if we dig a bit deeper, you might be surprised.
I'll start from the bottom: The 13" Flour Tortilla. Finding a low-fat tortillas can be tricky, and I know from shopping around at Kroger that they sometimes have more fat than you'd expect. But let's just pick an average tortilla.
A Mission Foods 8" flour tortilla has 147 calories and 3.06 grams of fat (0.6 saturated). If we stretch that out to 13", we get just 238 calories and about 5 grams of fat (1 saturated).
The numbers for Qdoba's tortilla? 330 calories and 8 grams of fat (3 saturated). You've already broken Jared's 6 grams of fat or less rule, and all you're eating is an empty tortilla.
Next up, Cilantro Lime Rice. A cup of white rice should contain about 1 to 4 grams of fat, depending on what you're cooking it with. According to Uncle Ben's, a cup (4.9 oz) of white rice has 230 calories and 3.5 grams of fat (0 saturated). Reduced down to Qdoba's portion size, that's 188 calories and 2.85 grams of fat (0 saturated).
Qdoba's rice: 4 oz, 220 calories, 5 grams of fat (1 saturated).
I can keep going with this, but no one wants to read all that. Instead I'll just give you the grand totals for the burrito:
940 calories and 24 grams of fat (6 saturated)
What could you have eaten instead? How about KFC's 3 piece crispy strip meal with a side of mashed potatoes and gravy? Here are the numbers for that fine example of healthy eating:
530 calories and 29 grams of fat (6 saturated)
Sure, it's 5 more grams of fat, but you're saving 410 calories. That's a trade I'm willing to make.
Now don't get me wrong, this isn't just about destroying everything you know and love. It's also a cry for help. What are you eating for lunch?
(Before you say anything, keep in mind I'm going to look it up.)
4 comments:
I really don't like that you continue to pursue this whole "food content" line of blogging. Let's go with something else, mkay? Anne Calvello of roller derby fame died on the 14th, how about an interesting run up of her life? Or maybe about how hot she looked with that deep, deep tan and white lipstick, hm?
And for lunch today? Water. I've lost my appetite. :(
Well, it sort of pisses me off, to be honest. I mean, I know these places don't present themselves as "diet food" so to speak, but they do sort of project an image of fresh wholesome food...
I mean, even if you look at their healthy items page, you'll notice that they're really not offering anything you'd actually want to eat. And one of the low-fat options has 17 grams of fat.
When I start writing things like this, I think "well I may have to play with the info a bit to make it look bad." I originally had more ingredients on my burrito example. But as I kept writing and got bored with the topic, I realized I didn't actually need all those ingredients; I could just go with the basics and still present a pretty strong argument. Or at least I think so.
Anyway, it's interesting to me, and it's something I deal with everyday, so why not? I mean, I could write about how I didn't go on a bike ride and felt guilty about it, but that's not very entertaining for anyone.
True, they don't present themselves as a diet food restaurant, but I think it's wholly misleading for them to put any of those food items on a "healthy" menu! All of those are high in everything with the exception of the Grilled Veggie Naked Taco Salad, and I'm sure I'm missing something there.
The facts are there, you didn't need to do anything else. Most people don't pay attention or intentionally disregard nutrition information in order to justify what they put in their bodies. There are times when I do it. I'm not the world's healthiest person, but I like to know what's in my food. You, on the other hand, seem to really investigate this stuff. Is that how you slimmed down? By really watching everything? I don't have the willpower for that.
I think you can write about going not riding and feeling guilty. That could be entertaining. Or you can write about me not doing the Pilates for about 2 weeks now because I feel so lazy. Or you could keep writing about food so I can reply to re-affirm your observations. You know, you could be doing a good service here.. Who knows who else reads your blog and then thinks about processed food. Or maybe you're just making people hungry..
One of those burritos is HUGE though. I can't even finish half of one when I'm starving. They end up being at least a day's supply of food for me. They're not really bad then.
You don't have to finish your plate. It is okay to eat normal portion sizes.
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