Chipotle is Spurring a Battle Between My Stomach and My Mind

Chipotle makes delicious burritos.

I absolutely love Chipotle.  Their burritos are delicious, and their business model is superb.  I actually love the fact that they don't expand their menu because from a financial perspective it just makes sense.  They are sticking to their core product, and manage to maintain an image of environmentally friendly, chic, and trendy at the same time.  In many ways they remind me of Apple, though I dislike Apple for other reasons.  Their recent ad campaign, while somewhat misleading, is brilliant, keeps their target customer interested in their product, and just cements their image as the premier fast casual restaurant in the United States.  By all accounts, they are my absolute favorite restaurant overall.

Chipotle Decides to Raise Prices in Order to Remove GMOs From Their Food

And then Chipotle did something that drove me up a wall.  A little while back, Chipotle started labeling whether any of their ingredients contained Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).  If you have read my post a couple months ago about the often misunderstood difference between causation and correlation, which focused on an article in Elle Magazine about GMOs and allergies, you will know that I hate the battle against GMOs by the environmental groups.  It isn't that I think that GMOs should be given a free pass, but there is literally no scientific study that has ever shown causation between GMOs and allergies, super-weeds, or any other negative GMOs are associated with.  If anything,  genetically modifying crops, where specific genes are introduced into a plant for the specific purpose of either producing more output,  is a far safer method of developing new crops than the old method of dousing plants and seeds with radiation or chemicals or through classic selection by breeding two different plants together.  Both of these methods produce the desired results, but with a greater likelihood of undesired mutations than genetic modification does.  Its the difference between removing a mole through surgeon and scalpel and removing a mole via a self-inflicted gunshot.

Labeling their ingredients that contained GMOs irked me, but I let it slide, probably because I really like Chipotle (I don't know if I made this clear).  Then, just the other day, Chipotle announced that they will likely be raising prices in order to try and remove GMOs as much as possible from their ingredients.  This actually made me upset.  I accepted the inflated prices for a burrito made with a portion of organic or non hormone injected beef because while there is little to no evidence showing any increase in nutrition from organic food, you could at least make a moral argument for using organic ingredients.  With genetically modified crops, there is no moral argument to be made, and there is not any scientific study showing a link between GMOs and any of the dangers they are accused of, regardless of what organizations such as the Non GMO Project claim.  It is upsetting especially because all this decision does is fuel people's ignorance and provides those people who are fighting against genetically modified organisms with "evidence" that GMOs are indeed bad.  As much as I realize that Chipotle is just looking out for its image and bottom line, I can't help but think a line needs to be drawn that a business won't cross just to pad its profits.  I know I am fighting a losing cause, but my feelings on making evidence-based decisions rather than emotional decisions is very strong,  Of course by publicly trying to reduce their use of GMOs, Chipotle is making an evidence-based decision to appear more environmentally friendly and gain more customers and brand loyalty, but the disregard for science in favor of appeasing the masses outweighs that in my mind.

Science Should Come Before Profits

I think part of why I feel so strongly about this decision is because I am in the nuclear power industry, a field that regularly sees people angrily protesting against it, even though all the science points to nuclear power being the safest and one of the cleanest forms of power that man has ever devised.  For those against nuclear power, no amount of science seems to help sway their opinion.  Instead of the evidence changing their opinion, their opinion shapes what evidence they accept.  This is classic confirmation bias, and is in direct opposition to everything science is about.  I know that my attempts to convince people they need to just look at the data and adjust their opinion are foolhardy, but I can't help myself.  Science is about information and knowledge and learning, and this decision by Chipotle goes against that.  This decision aims to take advantage of people's ignorance on a subject and their emotions and profit from it.  It is completely anti-science.  I love your food Chipotle, I really do, but you have crossed a line in my mind.