Published on 12, July, 2020
I'll come clean to start with.
I am a very fussy eater. My diet is very bland. It used to drive my mother to despair the way I wouldn't eat much variety of food.
I hate strong flavours, with the exception of kippers and sardines. I eat very little meat. And I eat very few vegetables either, and cooked vegetables are a very big no, except for potatoes in the form of chips or baked.. Lettuce, radish, watercress, and raw carrots are the only other vegetables I eat. The only poultry I will eat is in the form of a boiled or poached hen's egg, except as part of the recipe for a cake. Bread, nearly always wholemeal (I do like white bread but avoid it because it is less healthy.) And milk, butter, cheddar cheese, yoghurt, and fruit (oranges, bananas, apples, peaches, strawberries, .... nothing exotic. ) There is very little else I will eat. I know I won't like it and 'gag' at any attempt. An onion I could detect at fifty paces and it is amazing that others insist there is not onion in what they are eating - many things have onions or onion powder in them which I can detect.. Strong smelling foods I find thoroughly revolting.
This extends to cookery programmes on television, pictures in magazines, etc. I have an absolute aversion. Lidls the supermarket, was selling snails the other day, they looked just like snails collected from the garden. How anyone could put them in their mouth I do not know, they looked disgusting.
This food aversion has been with me throughout my life. Right from just after I was on solid food. Nothing my mother did could force me to eat things I dd not want. I believe this is strongly linked to being autistic.
I am writing this not to ask for advice on how to eat. Nor to express my concern over my diet. I am 62 and am not dead yet and it has not done me a lot of harm. I just wonder how many others of 'mature' years also have a restricted diet. And I also hope that it may reassure parents that if their children are very fussy, as long as they are eating some healthy food they need not worry too much.
The main problems it causes me are that I cannot eat out (except fish and chips with no funny stuff on them, just salt and vinegar.) A meal at a restaurant I would look on as a punishment. Rather than that I would much rather sit down to two pieces of wholemeal bread and butter with a banana.
And if that is what I like, why should that be of concern to others?
tomatoes are evil. so are raisins. and broccoli.
But tomatoes are the most evil of all. Apart from ketchup which is yum.
Trainspotter said:I just wonder how many others of 'mature' years also have a restricted diet.
Yes, I do, though the reasons are partly the same, partly different.
There are some foods and drinks that I simply can't stand; sometimes because of the flavour or smell (raw tomato, whisky), but more usually because of the texture (fat and gristle on meat, peanut butter, butterbeans and chick peas),
However a lot of the time, it's my executive functioning and aversion to the shopping environment that's the problem. So that I manage to feed myself adequately at all, I rely on "auto-pilot" a lot for shopping and food preparation; otherwise my procrastination and difficulty initiating tasks can take so long that I end up with nothing at all. I buy exactly the same things over and over again so that it takes as little conscious thought as possible to get this done, and so that I minimise as much as possible how long I have to spend in the supermarket.
Quite frankly, I even find the eating bit rather a chore, and often don't notice my hunger. If I could shovel coal into my belly to provide adequate nutrition, I'd be perfectly happy with that most of the time.
Hi i have just read your article on how your relationship is around food, i am currently researching this subject for a small autism champion group that i am part of and my areas of interest is around sensory diet/ food revulsion, i have enjoyed your detailed description of how you explain what you do like to eat and what foods do not sit well with you. if you feel you have any time to share with me any other experiences or suggestions of how i can put this together in a case study i would be very grateful for your help and authroisation to do so. kind regards
Hey Trainspotter, I am really sorry I did not mean to disrespect your thread.
So the eels are joining in this rampage too!!! Sorry just my humour!!! www.youtube.com/watch
The spuds are rioting, the pasta has gone on the rampage, the tomatoes are ravishing everything in sight, and all yellow foods have gone on the attack!! ~ I See It, I See It!! Oh, my bad. (You didn't mean that type of revolting food.) lol
When people tell me that I am a fussy eater I respond by saying I am a selective eater.
I do not add salt, pepper or gravy to my food, and sauces and spices are a definite no. My preference is for raw food, particularly fruit. I also do not mix food on my fork (a lot of people do this and it baffles me).