Chipotle
When my brother was nearing kidney failure, I went with my family to a doctors appointment about dialysis and potentially getting my brother on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. My brother was fortunate enough to receive a living donation from my father, but discussion of alternative solutions in case my father was not a match still existed.
Although much of the appointment was focused on those alternative options, Chipotle was the main topic of discussion. My brother's nutritionist highlighted what a person nearing kidney failure is allowed to have and how to take certain medications with food.
When she asked my brother about what he liked to eat outside of the house, my brother and I agreed on Chipotle. Chipotle wasn't the best, but it was a nice chain with decent food that we ate at often with my grandparents. With the nutritionist, we looked at the nutrition facts for my brother's go to order: a burrito bowl with cilantro-lime white rice, carnitas, romaine lettuce, cheese, and sour cream. Doesn't seem bad, right? At 1020 mg of sodium, it contains 68% of the daily recommended sodium intake for those with chronic kidney disease and 44% of the daily recommended sodium intake for normal people in accordance with the National Kidney Foundation. In one meal, he would be consuming 2/3 of his sodium for the day. He doesn't even get beans. With beans, it's even worse.
My brother's nutritionist cautioned against eating foods high in sodium like that. She said that before becoming a nutritionist, she would eat Chipotle too. At about 700 calories, the average Chipotle order seems perfectly fine, but with so much sodium, it clearly isn't. She and I talked about how misleading fast-casual and fast-food chains are and how we were surprised there aren't more regulations to protect people. American fast-food culture literally kills people every day whether we want to admit it or not. Don't get me wrong, I still eat fast food and even Chipotle sometimes, but consumption needs to be limited or risks at least highlighted in establishments like Chipotle. Businesses need to start caring less about how much profit they are making and more about the people they are serving.
My brother's nutritionist and I agreed that fast-food culture needs to be taken to the Supreme Court. I know that eating fast-food is a choice, but people should at least be aware of what they are consuming before they decide to make that choice. Establishments need to start incorporating disease specific special diets. Businesses don't have to make menus specific to every disease that exists, but to disease areas. Why not? Chipotle already has vegetarian, vegan, whole30, keto, and paleo specific diet information for every ingredient. By incorporating diet information for CKD and other chronic diseases, people with rare diseases and diseases in general will be less at risk than they currently are of ordering food that they think is healthy but that is actually hurting them significantly. In addition to creating diet specific information for the parts of the population that are trending (vegans, vegetarians, etc.), they can do the same for the parts of the population that really need it. I know it's easy to forget about the minority group of people affected by rare diseases, but we need to fight for them because they are just as much of people as anyone.
