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Chipotle and the Cult of Secular-Kosher
Is it important to you that the coffee you drink be fair trade and shade-grown? That the grapes from which your wine is made be locally-sourced? That the food you eat contain not a whiff of genetically-engineered ingredients? Welcome to the world of secular-kosher, where Judaism’s ancient dietary code for ethical eating is discarded in favor of a New Age preoccupation with feeling good about yourself and a healthy dollop of anti-Big Ag posturing.
The embodiment of secular kosher is Chipotle, which, in 2015, would seem to be hell-bent on poisoning as many of its customers as possible: a norovirus outbreak in California over the summer and another in Boston earlier this month; several cases of salmonella poisoning in Minnesota; an outbreak of E. coli in the Pacific Northwest. All three pathogens are unrelated. States which have reported food poisoning from eating at Chipotle read like a particularly grueling NBA road trip: Illinois (1), New York (1), Ohio (3), Minnesota (2), California (3) Pennsylvania (2). Bastions of progressivism Oregon (13) and Washington (27) lead the the list. The Center for Disease Control has been working overtime keeping score. As of December 18, 2015, 53 people have been infected with the Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O26 bacteria.
Food with integrity.
Virtually all of Chipotle’s marketing reeks of moral exhibitionism. Far removed from the pedestrian aim of providing moderately healthy food which is tasty and safe, Chipotle would have you believe that “With every burrito we roll or bowl we fill, we’re working to cultivate a better world.”
The “better world” which Chipotle purports to strive for in its slogan places a premium on happy animals at the price of increased likelihood of poisoning people. When it says its meats are raised “responsibly” it’s meant to assuage the conscience of its agriculturally-illiterate customer base, not to reassure the rest of us that the Chipotle experience is as safe as, say, Burger King. But don’t take my word for it: its most recent annual report contained this gem: “We may be at higher risk for foodborn illness outbreaks than some of our competitors due to our use of fresh produce and meats rather than frozen and our reliance on employees cooking with traditional methods rather than automation.”
How’s that for a New Age slogan?
Chipotle has as much a knack for curious marketing as it does for food-born illness. Below are some pearls of wisdom Chipotle serves up fresh to its customers from such intellectual trendsetters such as Judd Apatow, Sarah Silverman and Toni Morrison.
It’s hard not to take a little pleasure in the self-induced struggles Chipotle, a company whose moral vanity represents a seamless convergence of both New Age and hippie values. According to an excellent article Henry Miller at Forbes — Chipotle: The Long Defeat Of Doing Nothing Well — the primary obstacle for Chipotle is overcoming its leap of faith that providing locally sourced, natural, and additive-free food can be scaled to work on a magnitude spanning an entire continent in which the distribution chain isn’t measured in minutes.
Until such a time that Chipotle proves it can overcome this obstacle, you’re probably safer eating at Sambo’s.
The title of this post is close to perfect, but for the record, actually keeping kosher is actually hard.
Exactly!
Seen Good Hair?
I agree about the moralistic preening, but I’m not sure the proper response is to point out food-borne illness problems. We shouldn’t insist on perfection there, especially since we don’t and won’t have such perfection at meals in non-restaurant settings. Do you want more government inspections and regulations of restaurants and the food industry? Those already cost us a lot in money, food choices, and liberty.
Here’s one possible lesson: Go eat your mom’s cooking. (When was the last time you called her, anyway?)
There’s a Boston-based chain that occupies a similar niche and competes with Chipotle locally, and I’m mildly surprised that their motto isn’t “culturally appropriated burritos.”
Also good stuff, but don’t have tacos. :(
I love it when the Left’s inconsistencies bop them in the face.
Indeed. At first I thought it was just “no pork and no shellfish” and figured it wasn’t any harder than what Catholics do during Lent (despite my personally finding a life without shrimp unlivable.) The more I learn about how it actually works I find myself wondering how Jews manage to eat at all.
I really like Chipotle as well; every time a new poisoning story breaks, I think to myself: mmmmm, Chipotle, I haven’t eaten at Chipotle in a while, I should go!
Might I recommend Juan in Million in Austin or Dos Reales in Champaign-Urbana?
You gotta break a few eggs to make the socialist omlet.
A Messianic Jewish friend of mine told me that America’s influence on world cuisine made it easier to eat kosher on the road because he always knew he could find beef at American chains.
Your Messianic friend was not following the laws of kosher as enunciated by the Talmud. There’s no American chain I know of that serves kosher meat.
True. Still, while no restaurants serve both kosher and non-kosher food, and relatively few cities even have a kosher restaurant, a good 20-30% of the food sold in grocery stores is marked as supervised kosher. So we eat fine.
I love the irony of the secular-kosher label!
A few years ago I was at lunch with clients from a large company that raises poultry and distributes poultry products. As they said in jest, “the only safe food to eat out is fried chicken. It’s cooked at a high enough temperature to be safe.”
Well, fried anything would never be found on a secular-kosher menu. But fried chicken is just so darned good!
The great Charles Krauthammer had a commentary on food this week. All those things we once knew to be good for us (trans fats) as pushed by the federal government will be shown to be bad for us. Everything about “good for you” food recommendations is suspect.
I am fine without ever again eating at Chipotle.
Right after you took out that insurance policy. Smart.
iWe – Are you seeing kosher meat now sold in national or regional (outside of NYC) grocery store chains?
Sure! Or Los Bandidos, if it is still there.
In the Army, when we knew we were getting deployed somewhere really lousy, so bad we knew we’d be forbidden from consuming the local victuals (even if we bought it “live” and prepared it ourselves)–e.g., Haiti–everyone would state that they ate only kosher or only halal.
I guess kosher and halal are not mutually exclusive, because the “My Own Meal” MRE was both. The standards for preparation are so much better than regular MREs (where the primary ingredient of the beef stew was a cow pushed through a wood chipper) that they are better by an order of magnitude.
Trader Joe’s sells kosher poultry all across the land.
At this point I understand Empire sells more to non-Jews than to Jews.But when I am on the road, I never check – I can eat off the shelf, so I don’t bother with the virtual impossibility of cooking kosher in an AirBnb kitchen.
Seems Chipotle aligns with the signs here that say Comida –
Food not to be trusted, regardless of the lack of corpses lying about the franchise. Oddly enough, never seen Kosher in Mexico – Care to try a start-up ?
This seems like a good place to post these Jimmy Kimmel videos:
GMOs
Gluten
The first answer is the most Jews don’t keep kosher at all. The second answer is that there are degrees of kashrut. The third answer is that while I will have not obviously unkosher food, including fish or tofu just about anywhere (including Chipotle), and thus, perhaps lack standing to opine, in 2015, it’s not that difficult, and is in many ways enjoyable (as well as meaningful).
Thanks for the feedback, Tom: I’m happy to hear it. My biggest issue with the dining experience – and maybe this is true of all burrito places – is getting the rice and meat and stuff mixed so that every bite contains more or less everything. Too often
Thank you, Pensilvania: I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Yeah, hey! Why is there rice in my burrito AT ALL? What is this, Asian or something?
Yeah, hey! Why is there rice in my burrito AT ALL? What is this, Asian or something?
As long as he’s not seething the kid in the milk of its mother, more power to your friend.
One of these days I’m going to walk into a Chipotle outlet and ask for directions to the nearest Chik-fil-A.
To keep things in some perspective here, according to the CDC, about 48 million people each year get sick from contaminated food. The tally at Chipotle was 500, including the people who fell sick from norovirus, which isn’t necessarily a food contaminant. Norovirus is one of the most common viruses around, and all it takes is one sick employee serving fresh food…
The likely source of the e. coli and salmonella infections (and possibly the norovirus) are the fresh vegetables Chipotle uses, and which are a big part of the gov’t dietary recommendations. It’s not the meat, which is cooked.
And, again according to the CDC, it’s likely not the organic producers that Chipotle uses that are the source, because they supply only 10% of Chipotle’s food, and are generally local. The outbreaks were therefore most likely from the big non-organic producers.
So blaming the whole thing on “secular kosher” is a bit of a straw man, as something like this happens all the time, to all sorts of businesses.
Most of the biggest food recalls have been of fresh vegetables, which are apparently the most dangerous foods we eat.
It is not a straw man when the restaurant makes “secular kosher” the centerpiece of their marketing.