You Should Skip The Guacamole At A Mexican Restaurant. Here's Why
Basically everyone loves guacamole, so it's an easy decision to get some to share as an appetizer when you eat at a Mexican restaurant. Unfortunately, we're here to tell you there are a few reasons you might want to skip this bright green dip next time you eat out.
While guacamole is healthy for you in general, a serving size is much smaller than what you generally get in a restaurant order. According to Cooking Light, you should really only be eating between two tablespoons and a quarter of a cup of the dip at a time. For comparison, according to USA Today, the original standard size for guacamole at Chipotle was four ounces, and the chain added a half-pound option in 2018. Cooking Light states that a quarter-cup of guacamole, without the tortilla chips you're likely using to eat it, contains 109 calories. While it is primarily made of avocados, which are associated with a ton of health benefits, you should still be mindful of how much you consume, as you could absentmindedly eat multiple servings in one sitting.
LiveStrong states that the recommended serving size for tortilla chips is only one ounce, which amounts to about eight chips. This provides around 140 calories, so if you stick strictly to serving sizes for chips and guacamole, you will still be adding around 250 calories to your meal. And we all know it can be pretty hard to only eat the recommended portion of any snack.
You could be getting fake guacamole
The guacamole you order at a Mexican restaurant might not even be real! In 2019, there was an avocado shortage which caused prices for the fruit to skyrocket. Travel and Leisure reports that while some restaurants were upfront about replacing the ingredient – one Texas eatery advertised a broccoli-based "mockamole"- some establishments in California and Texas were caught deceiving customers by using calabacita, a Mexican summer squash, instead of avocado for their guacamole to cut costs. In an interview with NPR, Javier Cabral, a journalist for L.A. Taco, stated that the fake guacamole tasted almost identical to real guacamole!
Travel and Leisure says one way to spot guacamole made with calabacita is to pay attention to the texture, which they describe as much thinner than your standard avocado-based dip. While this faux-guacamole was initially reported on a year ago, the price of avocados is still fairly high according to the Produce Blue Book, so it never hurts to be vigilant.