Eating Healthy

Choosing healthy meals at restaurants is possible, but it helps to have professional assistance. Toby likes that Chipotle lets us build a meal, so adding or subtracting ingredients is much easier than many other fast-food options. And the nutrition information is included, so no guessing is required. Watch this short video, then head for your local Chipotle Mexican Grill with confidence that your meal will be friendly to diabetes and heart health.

Hi everyone, Toby Smithson here with DiabetesEveryDay. We are back with another restaurant overview of what can I eat. Remember we are using 750 calories or less; 50 grams or less carbohydrate, 750 mg sodium or less, 5 grams or less of saturated fat, and no trans fat as our guide for choosing a diabetes friendly meal when we are eating out.

We headed over to Chipotle to find out which menu items would be our best bet. The nice thing about Chipotle is that their menu is a build your own which is perfect for us with diabetes. We get to select exactly what items will fit into our meal plan. Chipotle also has a nutrition calculator so you can see which menu choices fit best and if the item takes you over the limit of let’s say sodium or saturated fat or carbs…you can swap it for another menu item as you build your meal.

Here is what I found to be the best choices for us:

2 chicken tacos on crispy corn tortillas, fajita vegetables, romaine lettuce, and fresh tomato salsa

OR you can swap out the chicken for steak tacos with the same ingredients OR you can also swap out the tomato salsa for guacamole in the steak tacos

OR

Choose a burrito veggie bowl which includes guacamole. Add black beans, romaine, and fajita vegetables  OR swap out the guacamole for Roasted chili corn salsa.

And to drink, choose a 0 carbohydrate beverage.

These are the choices to meet our guidelines-it’s really eye opening once you start looking at the carb, sodium, and saturated fat content of the foods at restaurants.  I couldn’t add beans to the chicken tacos, for example, because adding beans pushed the sodium above 750 mg. Not adding beans left the carbohydrate content around 25 grams, but there you go. Eating healthy at restaurants is possible, but to meet all of our pretty generous guidelines choices are necessary.

Thanks for joining me today. Please remember to hit the subscribe button and comment below on the restaurant you’d like me to review next time. Until then, Here’s to your health.