Yes, you can get a gluten free meal at Chipotle – if you’re careful. Avoid these 6 ingredients to make sure the meal does not have any gluten:

1. Tortillas – Made with flour. Obviously, you can’t eat these.
2. Soft Tacos – Made with flour
3. Tomatillo Red-Chili Salsa - Contains distilled vinegar. Don’t use the hot salsa if you have a reaction to vinegar
4. Hard Taco Shells
5. Lettuce
6. Cheese

Hard taco shells, lettuce and cheese don’t contain gluten. But, they are easily contaminated by anyone assembling your meal. Here’s how:

Imagine the person in front of you orders a burrito. The Chipotle employee rolls the flower tortilla and wraps it in the famous foil. His rubber gloves are contaminated from touching the tortilla… Now you order lettuce and cheese on your bowl. He’ll grab both the lettuce and cheese with his hands (contaminated from the previous tortilla) and drop it on your bowl!

2 Golden Rules for eating at Chipotle:

#1 Order items with a spoon (or tongs)!
#2 No HOT Salsa!

Only order items with the big, silver spoon or tongs. That way, the Chipotle employee will never use his hands on your food – avoiding contamination (see bullets below). The image above shows all of the food & spoons. Check out the Chipotle website for more info.

1. There still is a risk of contamination, even if you’re careful. If the spoons ever touch a tortilla before you order, they may be contaminated.
2. Asking the employee to change his gloves for your order will – obviously – help. However, you don’t know how many times his hands have already touched tortillas and the lettuce & cheese before you got there.
3. Read the Celiac.com forum where they talk about Chipotle.

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