Taquitos are a flavorful Mexican snack or meal, depending on how many of the tasty morsels you can eat. Once popular in Mexico and Puerto Rico, they are growing in favor in Western countries as well. How nutritious or healthy they are depends on a variety of factors, such as the brand, where it is prepared or if you made it yourself at home. Like any other food, they offers health benefits with some negatives as well. The key when striving to eat healthy is to always eat in moderation, and to eat a variety of foods.
Identification
Taquito simply means little taco. It's made by rolling a small tortilla around some filling, usually beef, chicken, pork, vegetables or beans, and then it is fried. They are made of wheat flour or corn tortillas. Fully rolled, they don't measure much longer than 5 or 6 inches. Taquitos can be served with meat, eggs and potatoes for a breakfast food or served as a popular dinner item. They are typically served with salsa, guacamole or sour cream.
Types
Taquitos can be homemade. They can be made with meat that you have prepared to your specific tastes and then ingredients can be added that you like. Making them fresh would minimize sodium and preservatives, and you could regulate how much oil you used in the preparation. This is how they are usually cooked in Puerto Rico where taquitos are popular.
In the United States, taquitos are usually mass produced, frozen and then shipped to restaurants, fast food chains, overnight convenience stores, like 7-11, and the frozen section of your grocery store. One can find beef taquitos at Don Pablo's, a Tex Mex restaurant. 7-11 caters to the late night crowd with its jalapeno and sour cream taquitos. El Monterrey serves a variety of flavors in its frozen packages.
Negatives: Sodium
Because taquitos are typically processed and packaged as frozen goods before being reheated in yoru kitchen or the kitchen of a restaurant, they are going to have a fair amount of sodium. Two grilled chicken taquitos from Taco Bell contain a whopping 980 mg of sodium, nearly half your daily recommended allowance. Two chicken taquitos made with corn tortillas from El Monterrey's frozen Mexican food line contain about 360 mg of sodium. Although they are about half the size as the taquitos from Taco Bell, so eating twice as much would be about 700 mg of sodium.
Negatives: Fat
One jalapeno and cream cheese taquito from 7-11 packs 13 grams of fat, 6 of which is saturated, into its 3 ounce serving. This is 30 percent of your daily saturated fat intake. A diet high in saturated fat is linked with obesity and an increased predisposition to heart disease. El Monterey also makes Charbroiled Chicken Breast Taquitos with flour tortillas. One serving size is three taquitos, and its fat content is 19 grams.
Benefits
Since meat is usually a staple of the taquito filling, taquitos are decent source of protein. For example, one grilled steak taquito from Taco Bell has 17 grams of protein. Three Jose Ole chicken taquitos provide 7 grams of protein. If you eat beans with your taquito, you can drive up the protein amount as well as the amount of fiber. Another way to increase your fiber intake is to have your taquito made with a whole wheat tortilla and to add more vegetables to it as well.
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