Fast food to make a nutritionist smile
Chipotle is a little hard to find. From the street, when you enter the strip mall, you can see a Boston Market sign and dental offices, but to find the eatery, you have to drive around the side of the mall. There it is, a small store festooned with a “Grand Opening” banner. Chipotle, an up-and-comer in the nation’s pantheon of healthy fast food, has finally come to metropolitan Boston.
There are now 585 in the nationwide chain. At the Medford branch — the 578th — the interior is all shiny pressed metal and deep magenta. Young women working the counter smile shyly as they flip tortillas into a warming press, cover them with shredded pork, black beans and rice, and salsa. A young man in the open kitchen turns and shows off a T – shirt that reads, “I made the guacamole today.” The simple menu here, which boasts many organic ingredients and naturally raised meats, consists of burritos, tacos, and salads.
But in metropolitan Boston, Chipotle is a latecomer. The chain was one of the first fast – food places in the country to embrace healthy choices, but here it joins several small local chains already trying to make a name for themselves. America’s love affair with fast food — McDonald’s Big Macs and fries, KFC fried chicken, Taco Bell Mexican style — defines us to the world. In the last decade, that craze for fatty, salty, premade , and cheap fare has also been linked to the obesity crisis. As the nation struggles to deal with the resulting health problems, efforts to limit trans fats have been stepped up.
Last week, the New York City health board announced that after July 1, artificial trans fats, widely used in cooking and in baked goods and linked to hiking bad cholesterol, will be banned from the city’s 24,000 restaurants, bakeries, and other eateries. The Boston Public Health Commission has launched a BestBites program, encouraging restaurants to eliminate trans fats, and its board is also discussing a proposal to ban trans fats.
Smart diners are not waiting, propelling the rise of places like Boloco, called The Wrap when it opened in 1997, which serves freshly made burritos. The name is supposed to sound Spanish, but comes from the words Boston, local, and company. In Watertown, the little cafe Lo Fat Know Fat, now simply KnowFat!, also opened in 1997 with promises of popular favorites with fewer calories. O’Naturals came to Acton in 2001, started after Stonyfield Farms cofounder Gary Hirshberg couldn’t find a place for quick, healthy food while on a family trip. And in 2004, two guys opened b.good on Dartmouth Street, offering burgers, malts, and fries made from scratch.
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