I have something I need to say about this Chipotle situation, and I swear I have no affiliation with them. I am just a customer and only an occasional one at that.

Everyone is getting all grossed out at their record of numerous outbreaks of food-borne illness. My husband came home last night saying he is so disgusted he will never eat there again. Personally I will have no problem eating at Chipotle again, and I also worry that we are going to shoot ourselves in the foot by making too big a deal of this situation.

The reason, in my opinion, that Chipotle is having more run-ins with microbes is because they have been trying to do something different. They have been trying to offer a healthier alternative, fresh foods fast. Fresh foods, meaning vegetables and less processed whole foods, are alive and unprocessed and are rich with nutritional and microbial life. With fresh eating comes the risk of encountering bacteria, some of it beneficial. Most of our bodies are well prepared to deal with all the organisms that would be encountered through eating fresh. A minority of folks with compromised immune systems or the very young or very old are more likely to have some troubles. Isn’t it just a few dozen people that were infected this last time in the Washington and Oregon episode? I have compassion for their GI troubles (and risk of death, as the media has been emphasizing), of course, but let’s keep this in perspective.

Now Chipotle is going to undergo a widespread reconfiguring of their food safety systems. You know what that means? More sanitizer. More heat treatments. More processing. Few of our kitchens would pass the rigorous standards required by commercial establishments. Nor would we want to eat like this in our homes, because we would lose many of the benefits of home cooking. I say let’s be a bit careful in our outcry, lest we should punish the organizations that are trying to provide us with healthier options. It’s not easy to do fresh food fast. And do we really want to shut down the restaurants that are trying? I for one will be the first person back in the doors when Chipotle re-opens.

Holly Tennant, Kirkland