Chipotle or Taco Bell?

Annually, common fast food restaurants are graded on their beef quality, composed by a team of advocacy groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). This quality is primarily determined based on the excessive usage of antibiotics—ranging from source-to-source. Antibiotics are commonly used in livestock practices to prevent the spread of diseases, especially in close-contact farming. However, oftentimes criticized, this excessive antibiotic use creates an uprising of “superbugs,” bacteria that survive premature antibiotic use and form generations of resistant strains, posing serious risk to cattle and humans alike. This concept is a fairly criticized practice of farming livestock, however overuse of antibiotics remains the cheapest option—subsequently revealing fast food chains who seem to care more about money, rather than health.

Graded an A, and reserved as the best meat quality of the tested restaurants, Chipotle is ironically graded the best. Despite a controversial past related to E. Coli. outbreaks in a number of locations, Chipotle has been the forefront of reducing antibiotic use in their livestock. Their beef is 100% grass fed, with over 30% certified humane. Grass fed beef has significant reductions on agricultural carbon emissions through proper sequestration and appropriate land–use of un-farmable grassy plains.

Chipotle prides itself on its environmental consciousness, with goals (and follow through!) of lowering greenhouse gas emissions, usage of solar energy, and waste diversion from landfills. The Mexican Grill restaurant models how even for consumers who wish to continue eating meat—or even who continue to order from fast food chains—can still model conscious eating and choice, protecting the environment’s health as well as our own.

However, ranked the lowest Taco Bell was severely criticized for their low-quality, over-medicated beef. After being publicly called out for their antibiotic use, Taco Bell issued, in a 2019 statement, that they would be lowering use of antibiotics that are important to human health by 25% by 2025 in American and Canadian locations. When reassessed in 2024, Taco Bell plateaued and kept a “D” scoring, on the traditional A-F scoring. Despite their attempts at lowering their antibiotic use (for which they notably only attempted once they were publicly criticized), their scoring remains at a lower grade demonstrating risk for the imminent rise of “superbugs” in addition to relying on antibiotics for their claustrophobic, putrid practices of cattle livestock.

When environmental papers, blogs, and protests request that the common people abstain from meat to practice environmental consciousness, it oftentimes becomes noise for consumers who are adjusted to eating fast food burgers. In conjunction with the overpriced nature of sustainable food, switching from a crunch wrap from Taco Bell to at-home salads can be difficult. However, this study reveals that beyond changing habits at an individual level, with full variations in diet, consumers can rather differentiate which fast food taco they consume choosing the healthier option for themselves and the world.