How to get the daily recommended 2,500 calories from Taco Bell and Chipotle

• We're comparing fast-food chains Taco Bell and Chipotle to see how they stack up in calories and nutrition.
• Insider's Joe Avella looks over each chain's menu to see what it takes to get his daily intake of calories, vitamins, and minerals delivered to his door.
• It's not as easy to get all the right vitamins without a massive increase of sodium.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Following is a transcript of this video.

Joe Avella: For the next several weeks, I'm gonna be working from home. Probably gonna get a lot of food delivered, and I wanna make sure that I'm getting my FDA-recommended daily caloric intake. Today I wanna compare Taco Bell and Chipotle. I wanna see what I have to order, how much it's gonna cost... uh, using sunlight, and it keeps changing. It just got a lot darker, didn't it? Oh, well.

I wanna see if I can get my daily vitamins and minerals from each restaurant and compare portion sizes to see how big one meal will be. As an American man, the FDA recommends that I get between 2,000 and 3,000 calories a day. I'm gonna go right in the middle. [pop] 2,500.

So, for some of the key vitamins and minerals, the FDA website tells me how much I'm supposed to get a day. First vitamin, vitamin A. Says I gotta get 900 mcgs RAE. That stands for micrograms of retinol activity equivalents. [sighs] I don't know what that means. Vitamin C: 90 milligrams. Calcium: 1,300 milligrams. Iron: 18 milligrams. Sodium: 2,300 milligrams. And protein: 50 grams. Fiber: 28 grams. Fat: 78 grams. Here comes that sun again. All right.

All that seems doable. Gonna be a lot of meats, fiber in the form of tortillas, right? Rice and beans, cheese, all those things that probably have all those vitamins and minerals in it. So, pretty confident I'll be able to get all of those when trying to reach my 2,500-a-day calories.

This is a website I found. You gotta go. Sorry. Nope, sorry. Can't be in this. Nutritionix. Or Nutrition IX? I can just click on the fast-food place I'm gonna be ordering from. Every time I select something, it'll tell me all the nutritional facts, how many calories, all the things I'm gonna be measuring. So that took all the math out of this for me. Thank you very much, website. Let's see what I can come up with.

I'm gonna start with Taco Bell first. I feel like I'll have more of an opportunity to, like, customize things that I'm getting. I mean, I'll just start anywhere? Uh... I wanna do, like...oop. [scraping noise] So, I like those Doritos tacos. That's usually a staple item that I get. Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos. I'm gonna go for the regular ones, not the supreme. I'll get two. All right, two of those are only 330 calories. I feel like that's not a lot. I should point out that that's almost a quarter of how much sodium I need for the day. And that's not even clearly a quarter of how many calories I'm gonna be getting today, so I feel like sodium's gonna be an issue, but let's keep going. What else do I like? I wanna get something that's just gonna, like, fill up many categories as possible. What is that thing, the big thing. That doesn't help at all. Where they fold it a bunch of times. Crunchwrap Supreme. Black bean Crunchwrap Supreme. Booyah.

What has vitamin C? What has vitamin C? Did I spell that right? All right, broccoli, cantaloupe, cauliflower, kale, kiwi, orange juice, obviously, OK. Peppers, sweet potatoes. Love a 7-Layer Burrito. Booyah. Ooh! There we go. [laughs] Oh, yes! Vitamin C, 90%. OK, OK, OK. Now we are at a black bean Crunchwrap Supreme, 7-Layer Burrito... [scraping noise] what's going on up there? Two Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos. Cholesterol, 19%. All right, sodium's at 92%. I feel like this is gonna be a high-sodium meal.

What... what has vitimin A? OK, vit-A-min A. Cod liver oil, spinach, broccoli, all right. So, extra lettuce helps with vitamin A. Some sort of power bowl to really, like, bump this thing up. Gonna go with the veggie. Add that on there, a lot of vitamin C. A lot of sodium. Only 1,700 calories. Every time I add something into one pile, another pile that I don't want to go up goes up. Can I just search the thing? Do I gotta, like, scroll down? Come on. [sighs]

Chicken enchilada nachos. I like chicken enchiladas, and I like nachos, so I have a feeling they're gonna be great. Aw, crap. Are they not available? [sighs] Come on. I'm so hungry. This is driving me nuts. [laughs] Ugh, the light.

♪ bing, bong, bing, bong ♪ ♪ bong bong bong bong bong ♪ ♪ baa ♪

Let's throw a rice and bean burrito in there. This is harder than it looks. Uh, let's do two of those. OK, great. Booyah! Got the calories, 2,500. A little, a hair over 2,500. Way more vitamin C than I need. That's fine. Definitely the calcium, definitely the iron. K, so I've maxed out my fats, I guess total fat, trans and saturated. Is that bad? I don't know if it's OK to go over on that. Vitamin A feels like a lost cause. Sodium is [laughs] so high. But definitely looking good on the fiber. A lot of sodium, a lot of sodium.

That was a bit more difficult than I thought it was gonna be. I feel like Chipotle's gonna be easier. All right, 'the Chipot'. I feel like it's pretty obvious. Let's get a burrito. Burrito. Steak, fillings, what do I like? Like the beans, the rice, gotta get some veggies in there. Yes, cheese, tomato salsa, guac, lettuce, sour cream. Like, this is what I would normally get, and I wanna see how it stands up. I love the green salsa. All right, so let's add that in there. What do we got here?

[laughs] One burrito's 1,300 calories? [laughs] OK. I could just get two burritos maybe. 100% saturated fat, sodium also out of control. Carbs could be better. Real good on fi- I'm liking the fiber on this one. Vitamin A, almost there, perfect. Vitamin C, [snaps] booyah. I feel like the guac was doing the heavy lifting on that. Thank you, guacamole. Calcium...[groans] Might need some more cheese. Iron, half.

I just wanna see what would happen if I got two. Even though we get almost everything, the sodium's off the charts. I wanna try and balance it out a little. Let's look at some extras. Guac, OK. That's looking pretty good. Not liking the calcium. Side of queso. Huh. Sodium's ridic. Fiber is high. Vitamin A, oh, my goodness. See, I wanna go into this burrito and kinda... a lot more vitamin C. OK, so it looks like the fajita veggies got a lot of vitamin C. OK, cheese puts calcium over the top. I played around with increasing the amounts of various ingredients, but nothing seemed to make a significant difference. [sighs] So frustrating. I need more calories, d-----.

Let's throw some chips in here. Yeah, that did it. That definitely did it. Oh, yo. God, the sodium, though. I wanna see what happens when I take away the queso. Ooh, yeah, brought the calories down, still hitting every vitamin. Yo, what up, sodium went down. OK, I think this is as good as I'm gonna get it. I am feeling very good about this. And, yeah, all right. Time to order.

Taco Bell is ordered via Grubhub, and Chipotle is coming via Doordash. Yep, just leave it right there.

Deliveryman: Here?

Joe: Yep, all great. Thanks, buddy. Thank you!

OK, here's the cost breakdowns for each order.

Taco Bell: one 7-Layer Burrito, $3.99, two Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos, $4.38, one Crunchwrap Supreme, $4.69, Veggie Power Bowl, $5.69, and two Cheesy Bean and Rice Burritos, $2.58. With delivery fees, tax, and tips, plus some reward, total: $34. [cha-ching]

Chipotle: chips and guac, $3.70, one burrito, $8.43. With tax, tip, and a bunch of other stuff, $18.29. [cha-ching]

Chipotle was almost half the cost of the Taco Bell order for roughly the same amount of calories. The cost difference can add up over time. The most obvious difference is the amount of food. This Chipotle order could be one meal, whereas Taco Bell is a lot easier to spread across the day. So if you're the kind of person who wants to get all their daily calories in one sitting, Chipotle's your best bet.

Taco Bell allows for way more variety. I could have gotten a completely different order that would have still had the same calorie amount.

On looks, Chipotle is way better. We did double up on some ingredients, but this just looks like it's brimming with all the good stuff I want. The Taco Bell looks flat. It doesn't appear to have as much going on inside. Furthermore, Taco Bell has almost 1,000 milligrams more of sodium. Also it was way harder to get all the vitamins and minerals with my Taco Bell order. Speaking of sodium, the sauce packets aren't much help either. They offer no calories, no nutrition, and, of course, more sodium. OK, Taco Bell, we get it.

Now, if you wanted to pick just one specific daily nutrient, you could try this. Taco Bell: vitamin C, which is roughly 75 milligrams, just one order of chips and guac could take care of that. Vitamin A, this one's tough. At best a supreme taco with double meat and double cheese could account for around 20% of your daily amount, so maybe eat five of them? The sodium on that would be over 4,000 milligrams, so maybe don't. Calcium, 1,000 milligrams. You can get that with two Cheesy Gordita Crunches with extra cheese. You'll get all the iron you need if you have two and a half Beefy 5-Layer Burritos with extra meat and beans. Chipotle. You can knock out your vitamin C and vitamin A with one steak salad with fajita veggies, white rice, and guac. For your calcium, just get one large queso and another side queso. [sigh] It's a lot of cheese. Don't do that. For 20 milligrams of iron, any serving of beans, barbacoa, or guac has 10 milligrams of iron, so mix and match two servings in your next order.

Let's take a look at portions. I'll put a third of each order on a plate to see what you'd have for one meal. That makes sense, right? Taco Bell. I cut up the burritos. Take two of these. Crunchwrap Supreme I'll cut like a pizza and grab two slices. The hard-shell Doritos tacos are easy to cut because they've been sitting out for a while and are soggy. OK, maybe not. That one was easier. I'll add two of those. For the Power Bowl, I'm just gonna eyeball it. OK, so one portion of Taco Bell is definitely a full plate.

Let's do Chipotle. [sighs] If I was smart, I wouldn't have cut this down the middle, because now I have to cut it into three even parts. Luckily I have a tape measure handy. So I'll just take the length and divide by three. OK, measure and cut. So this is certainly more obnoxious than Taco Bell. Add the chips and guac. I mean, yeah. An obvious difference. Taco Bell makes up for itself in volume for sure.

Obviously there's no perfect item that has everything you need. But if you were to get just one item off of either menu, here's what I suggest for high calories and a good amount of your daily vitamins and minerals. At Chipotle: Hey, get out of there. The Sofritas bowl. This not-so-appetizing-looking bowl comes in at 920 calories. Get double sofritas, black beans, fajita veggies, pinto beans, cheese, and queso, and sour cream. You'll get 60% of your vitamin A, 110% of your vitamin C, 90% calcium, 60% of your iron, and 47 grams of protein. At Taco Bell, get the Veggie Power Bowl with grilled steak. Yes, I know, I added meat to the veggie thing. A much more presentable option, it has 540 calories but packs in 80% of your vitamin C, 10% of your vitamin A, 20% iron, 25% of your calcium, and 27 grams of protein.

OK, got everything portioned out. So I'll be eating Taco Bell and Chipotle for breakfast, lunch, and dinner over the next few days. Great.

Chipotle was a lot cheaper, which I liked. The customization was a lot easier. I like Taco Bell gave me a lot of variety, a lot of smaller things could mix it up a lot. You know, I feel like I have to drink a lot of water just to balance out all that sodium.

OK, you can't sit on the laptop. Just go... [sighs] [sighs]

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