Food Network Star Cooks Up Dialysis-Friendly Meals for Sicklerville Patients

It’s not unusual to see chef Aaron McCargo Jr. dishing with people about how to keep turkey burgers moist. Unless, of course, McCargo is standing in the center of a dialysis clinic. 

That’s just what he did Monday at the Winslow Dialysis Center. McCargo, host of Big Daddy’s House on Food Network, has partnered up with Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA) to help educate patients about dialysis-friendly foods and recipes.   

“For now, dialysis has my 100 percent attention,” says McCargo, who brought his high energy as a side dish as he made his way around the clinic from patient to patient.     

McCargo is touring with Fresenius to share his recipes and gather feedback on what recipes make dialysis patients’ mouths water. While McCargo does not have a dialysis-friendly cookbook scheduled to come out, he says the possibility certainly is there.    

“Look out for fall and holiday recipes,” says McCargo, who plans to reveal season-specific recipes, such as snacks for football games, on his tour.   

More than 26 million Americans are diagnosed with kidney disease. Of those with end-stage renal disease, 382,000 rely on some form of dialysis to keep them alive.     

Dialysis serves the purpose of the kidneys if they were functioning properly, explains Shaun Segal, a dietician with the Winslow Dialysis Center. When kidney disease sets in, kidneys can no longer remove toxins from the body, so the dialysis machine cycles through the blood to remove toxins.          

“It’s like running a marathon, while staying still,” Jonah Pedersen said of the dialysis process, which takes about four hours to complete.

Pedersen was born with stage 1 renal disease—his kidneys were not completely formed at birth and he was put on pre-renal dialysis until he was 4 years old. At that time, Pedersen received a kidney transplant at The Children’s Hospital of Seattle.     

Now 24, Pedersen has used dialysis for nine years, after his kidney failed. He explains that for a kidney, the transplant lasted relatively long. Yet, it was hard for him to get used to the pain. With a bandage on his upper-right arm, he says the scar tissue helps him from feeling pain that troubled him so much for the first year.   

He now uses a cream to numb the needle injection sites. Dialysis is very tiring, Pedersen says, even though he never leaves the chair.    

“I feel like I’m being punished,” says Pedersen of the fatigue and drowsiness that sets in as his blood is cycled through a machine.  

Healing meals

When it comes to foods, potassium and phosphates are usually limited or restricted all together. Typically, a lot of spices and spicy foods fall into that category. Meats with high fat content can also be restricted.

“Basically, all the things people love to eat,” says Pedersen.        

McCargo was born and raised in Camden with his five brothers and sisters. He opened his first restaurant, McCargo's, in Camden in 2003. In 2008, he went on to host Big Daddy’s House after winning the station's Next Food Network Star competition.  

McCargo, known for cooking with "big, bold" flavors, has launched his own spice line. He also recently published a cookbook entitled Simply Done, Well Done.

After talking to the patients, McCargo says he received good feedback and is ready to work on some new dialysis-friendly meals.

What kind of food did the patients ask for?   

“I got requests for Indian food and fish tacos,” McCargo said.    

Segal prefers to show his patients what they can eat, as opposed to what they cannot eat. He says it is important to show the patients that dietary restrictions are a lifestyle change, but to always have a positive outlook.    

“We show you how to make it fun and easier to deal with,” Segal said. 

For a complete list of McCargo’s recipes, visit the Fresnius Medical Care website.

To learn more about kidney disease or prospective high-risks factors, Fresenius Medical Care offers Treatment Options Programs (TOPs) educational seminars. Seminars are free and open to the public. Call 1-877-867-7543 for more information.