The Low-Down on Chipotle’s Humanely Raised Meat
Posted on June 25, 2009 by diane
After seeing a recent news segment covering Chipotle’s humanely raised meat (what they call “food with integrity”), I decided to look at their site for myself to find out more. I wanted to know if all meats at Chipotle are raised in a humane way and whether or not the rest of their ingredients are organic. Here is what I found:
Pork- 100% of restaurants have naturally raised pork with no antibiotics, raised in open pasture, vegetarian feed with no animal by-products
Chicken- 100% of restaurants have naturally raised chicken with no antibiotics, raised with more room than in conventional coops, vegetarian feed with no animal by-products
Beef- 50% of restaurants have naturally raised beef with no antibiotics, no growth hormones, vegetarian feed with no animal by-products. They are working towards making this 100%. In Chicago only the Loop locations stock naturally raised beef.
Veggies- nothing on the site about organic veggies so they likely don’t have these
Beans- 30% of all beans were grown organically and they are trying to increase this
Dairy- only rBGH-free dairy products are used
So it looks like the most humane meat choice at Chipotle is actually pork! Personally I’d be OK eating any of these meats assuming I was going to a location where they had naturally raised beef. There is no mention of cattle being grass fed, but the cows are not being given some scary feed that contains cow parts for goodness sake. So it’s not quite as nutritious as grass fed beef, but it is a fast food restaurant after all.
More restaurants need to step up and adopt practices like Chipotle!
