Had enough protein today yet?

If the flood of protein-packed food options across dining menus in 2025 was any indicator, this was a lingering question on many minds.

The year isn’t over yet, and some restaurants aren’t done fueling your muscles and filling your stomachs.

Chipotle debuted what it calls its “first-ever high protein menu” on Tuesday, according to a news release. “A high protein diet has held the title as the top diet pattern in the U.S. for three consecutive years,” the company said as inspiration for the new menu.

I was morbidly curious.

Specifically, two images from the menu have burned into my brain after I opened the Chipotle app — only available on the app or online — to place an order at a Rockville location around lunchtime.

They are what the company also calls its “first-ever snack.” You can purchase high-protein cups with your choice of adobo chicken (32 grams of protein and 180 calories for $3.85) or steak (21 grams of protein and 150 calories for $5.60).

To crib a joke of forgotten provenance that floats around the internet: These look like what you’d feed a dog on its birthday.

The fast-casual chain has long been a haven for fitness-minded eaters seeking reliable, reasonably healthy food. My Banner colleague, Cody Boteler, heroically ate and ranked every Chipotle in Baltimore and seemed no worse for wear at the company holiday party.

Chipotle has also collaborated on specific menu items, which will be available for purchase starting Jan. 5, with health influencers and Silver Spring native Josh Hart, a guard for the NBA’s New York Knicks.

“Josh Hart’s High Protein Burrito” — which contains double adobo chicken, white rice, black beans, fresh tomato salsa, roasted chili-corn salsa, sour cream and Monterey Jack cheese — clocks in at 95 grams of protein and 1340 calories.

Chipotle isn’t alone in chasing consumers who are craving protein.

Washington, D.C.-born chain Sweetgreen sold a “Power Max Protein Bowl” in November that weighed in with 106 grams of protein. Even in the “foods that could be mistaken for dog food” space, Arby’s is still selling steak nuggets with up to 30 grams of protein, which have impressed some with its taste. A whole branch of the fast-casual industry, which includes Chipotle and Sweetgreen as its seedlings, is dedicated to balancing these vague desires for health and value with the not-so-glamorous offering of “slop bowls.”

Even as someone whose job it is to shine a spotlight on Montgomery County’s dining scene and venerate the societal importance of building community around meals, I’m not immune to the siren call of swole.

I don’t care to calculate how much I’ve spent on whey protein powder over more than a decade of fairly modest weightlifting and exercise.

When a colleague heard I was writing about the protein pandemonium, she messaged me: “I’m over everyone being obsessed with cottage cheese. Some of us are genuine cottage cheese lovers and can’t find it anymore.” She unknowingly read me like a book because tubs of cottage cheese have rotated through my refrigerator in recent years as I’ve tricked myself into thinking that it’s a reasonable salty snack substitute for chips.

All things being equal, protein is one of the more benign food crazes. Health experts generally agree that more protein is better than less, although you’re probably already eating enough without supplemental efforts to ingest more.

But I worry that this pursuit of hitting macronutrient targets and prioritizing protein at all bites will feed the growing desire to optimize everything at the cost of things like flavor or experience.

With that in mind, I left Chipotle with a doggie bag containing 134 grams of protein for lunch. In addition to the meat cups, I added the “Double High Protein Bowl,” which piles together double adobo chicken, light white rice, black beans, fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa, Monterey Jack cheese and extra romaine lettuce.

It was startling to eat the cups because the chicken and steak are typically part of the slop, so seeing them in this context is like a child seeing their teacher outside of school. The chicken had a fine enough accent of cumin, while the steak had great chew and a satisfying amount of garlic to stand on its own.

But the bowl confirmed my fears.

With all respect to my colleague who ate a not-too-dissimilar bowl at 18 Baltimore Chipotles, the melding of these protein-optimized ingredients resulted in a bland mush.

Blame it on my usual flavor-maximizing tactic at Chipotle (heap on every salsa, please, and some dashes of Chipotle Tabasco), but I stopped halfway through the bowl. I was full and also ready for a taste of anything else beyond a means to an end.