My strange eating habits

Hi there...

I know a lot of autistic people have certain eating habits such as liking certain foods and things, but I wondered if anyone else had similar habits to me. At the moment I feel a bit strange to say the least!

These are some of my habits:

  • I can't eat from plates or bowls that I have just washed up
  • If I don't wash something straight away, and leave it on the side for a day, I can't eat from it until the memory of it being dirty is gone
  • If executive dysfunction (or my chronic illness) leads me to not wash it up for a while, I just throw it out because I know I won't be able to eat from it :( I've lost some of my favourite bowls that way
  • I have certain cutlery and crockery for different things, I can't eat pasta from my cereal bowl for example

But if I go to someone else's house, none of these things apply. It's only if it is my house that I have these habits. I wonder if its linked to OCD?

  • If I did all that I'd have no dishes at all. I'm not the best at cleaning dishes right away, not least because it takes a while for the dishwasher to get full.

    For me, I will never eat from any clean dish my cats have previously eaten from (I use crockery to feed my cats but they have their own set of dishes), but I'll gladly wash my dishes in the same dishwasher with their stuff, even though I know the cat food particles have been touching my dishes.

    I also need to eat stuff from the correct sized plate. I have three different sizes of plates, and I always eat lunch from the medium ones and dinner from the large ones (even if I'm having for dinner exactly the same thing I had for lunch on a previous day).

    I have never really thought about it before, but eating pasta from a bowl is something I would never do, even if every plate was dirty and all I had clean were bowls. Who would even think of doing that???

    I don't like mixing foods that shouldn't be mixed, and it annoys me if sauce for one thing touches another kind of food on the plate that doesn't go with the sauce.

    It only occured to me around the time that I got my recent diagnosis that I might be unusual in this way. I thought everyone I knew was just weird because they would just eat anything in any way and had no real aesthetic sense or discerning taste when it came to food.

    I also don't seem to feel hungry like other people do, and I often mistake thirst for hunger, though I don't feel thirsty until I'm really dehydrated. When I drink water, especially tap water, but even sometimes bottled water, I often choke because it goes down the wrong pipe, but anything else I drink (milk, juice, etc.) doesn't have that effect, though fizzy drinks invariably give me hiccups.

    If I'm concentrating on something, I can go literally an entire day without eating, and I will also stay up late into the night without noticing (or caring about) the time. It is usually exhaustion that forces me to sleep, and if I am really enthusiastic about what I am doing, I feel refreshed and ready to go once the sun rises, even if I've had only two hours of sleep. Worry and stress also has this effect on my sleeping pattern, after I always found it so easy to get a full night's sleep as a child and teenager.

    After living in the New York area for my studies and seeing a documentary on TV about some stuff that goes on in restaurant kitchens, I mostly stopped eating food in restaurants, and I don't like to eat food that someone other than me has prepared, because I don't know how often they wash their hands. I eat food my mom makes, but I always drive her nuts by reminding her to wash her hands.

    Would it be regular OCD, or would it be the type of OCD that seems to come with being on the spectrum? ACD, rather than OCD?

  • I get that "point of no return" thing a LOT, when I've tried to explain it to anyone they just don't understand how you can be needing food but unable to eat. The closest I get to feeling hungry (basically what I mean when I say the word 'Hungry') is that sort of dizzy, spaced-out, almost headache-y feeling of low blood sugar. Too much sugar can sometimes feel the same though  : /   

    The longest I think I go without food at all is about 4 days but I drink a LOT so it isn't so bad. I tell myself that milk is a food so it's all good. When it gets to that stage I usually spend a further few days just nibbling at toast, or trying to, until things get back to normal then (occasionally) I start eating like a savage and forget to stop. 

    I used to have terrible problems with my weight (far too skinny) until about 40 and now I seem to have gathered a bit of normal-looking padding. I've no idea what my weight is, never weighed myself, but I feel a more healthy weight so I must be getting what I need. 

    All of this is something I've always felt a bit embarrassed about because I've never met or spoken to anyone with similar problems, it's such a relief to hear others mentioning it now!  

  • I've had those 'conversations' with myself!!! (Although not aloud unless I can pretend to be talking to the dog.) I try to eat when I notice on the clock that it's lunchtime etc because my own body doesn't seem to have a fuel gauge.

    I don't think my emotions come into being hungry (or not) but I do eat more when I'm alone rather than than with other people - I just put that down to being able to enjoy it without danger of them doing something to put me off.   

    I couldn't use cutlery with plastic handles for the same reason.  

  • No gravy doesn't work and custard with things what's that about?

  • Oh yes. Def can’t have things touching, especially don’t like gravy!

  • I cannot drink from any cup, mug or glass except mine, I eat with a small fork and I use a teaspoon of i need a spoon. I can't eat if I'm distressed about anything. I don't ever feel hungry or thirsty. I don't eat dead animals, I just can't do it. If there are bad smells, or a fly or anything like that the food will be infected and not edible. Fruit is disgusting. Vegetables are awesome except peas. Nothing can touch anything else on a plate. 

  • I can’t relate to the dirty plate thing but definitely certain crockery and cutlery for certain things. I have 5 different cups - one for tea, one for my morning coffee, one for coffee at other times, one for cappucino and 1 for hot chocolate or Horlicks. Drinking from the wrong cup messes with my head. E.g If I put coffee in my tea mug it would taste horrid because my brain would espect it to be tea. Also soup bowls for soup, cereal bowls for cereal, bread knife for bread, teaspoon for yoghurt, dessert spoon for ice-cream, and those spoons have to be the oval ones not the round ones. I cant’t use a round spoon for ANYTHING!

  • When I was a kid I used to have terrible problems with A and B. Trouble was, if I left it for too long without eating, it would just hit me really suddenly and I would feel terrible, really sick. Of course once I felt like that, it was impossible to eat, so the only solution was to go to sleep and eat something as soon as I woke up.

    I was tested for possible diabetes several times as it's kind of like when a diabetic person's blood sugars take a dive, but no, definitely not diabetic. With the benefit of hindsight, and a late (adult) diagnosis, I think the likely explanation is not realising that I was hungry until it's too late and has passed the point of no return.

    I seem to be better at it now I'm older, although that might be due to having a bit of body fat that I can use to stave off the worst! When I was a kid I was a skinny stick, so no reserves, I suppose.

    I am still terrible with getting dehydrated as I never feel thirsty. I don't think I even know what that is supposed to feel like! I drink liquids because I know I should, not because I feel thirsty.

    Also as a kid I used to get in a right old strop if I didn't get "my" placemat (blue vintage car) and the one knife in the set with a different logo on the blade from all the others. Psychologist told me this kind of fixed idea is quite common with AS. So maybe OP's eating/service habits have more to do with AS obsessions with routine than OCD?

  • What you said sounds very similar to me. The only issue is my other half ... let's just say doesn't have the same issue with dirty plates as me! He will leave them a few days and it drives me insane! He's always leaving a pile of plates in the washing up bowl so it makes my disinfecting harder lol!

  • A) remembering to eat,

    B) knowing the difference between feeling hungry and feeling full (because they both feel the same to me),

    I get a bit of those, probably because of poor 'interoception' (the sense of one's body). However, I manage to maintain a normal weight, know I need to spend some time on bodily needs, and I think part of me must know when I need food. So these are minor eccentricities for me rather than problems. Yesterday in the middle of something else, I unexpectedly had the following conversation aloud with myself:

    'Food.'

    'Really?' (I'm hungry?)

    'Apparently so.'

    That told me. It's also hard to distinguish hunger from emotional needs. Unlike your D, I don't have a very strong sense of disgust. If at home though, I can allow myself some oddities - I want cutlery that is all of one piece: no plastic handles, no places for bacteria to hide. I don't have OCD either. (I do have a kind of compulsive curiosity).

  • I have no idea if it's linked to OCD, do you have OCD? I have strange eating habits that are less centred around the food itself and have more to do with:

    A) remembering to eat,

    B) knowing the difference between feeling hungry and feeling full (because they both feel the same to me),

    C) often having to force myself to eat purely because it's been too many hours / days since I ate last but then feeling sick as I try to swallow every mouthful, and

    D) even when I do look forward to eating a meal I've spent ages preparing, being put off suddenly by things that don't seem to affect other people - such as seeing a fly (even if it's nowhere near the food), someone saying a gross word or making a disgusting noise such as burping, not being able to stop thinking about the food (red meat in particular) in it's pre-cooked / prepared state, and other things that everyone else seems not to notice.  

    I almost never eat in someone else's house but, weirdly, I don't mind eating in some restaurants or cafes if they look alright. I've no idea why these things are worse at home especially as it's nearly always me who prepares the food here. As I said though, it's less about the food itself and more about what else is going on around it. I don't have OCD  or an identifiable eating disorder and these things (A to D) seem to fluctuate in severity but I've no idea why.    

  • Hi there,

    It does sound if some of these things could be linked to contamination OCD.  I have rules about what types of crockery and utensils can be used for certain foods and I am meticulous about cleaning - to the point it drives my partner insane at times.  I will rewash dishes and rinse them to be sure and everything has to be bleached and sterilized regularly.

    I am very attached to my crockery as it was inherited from my grandparents and I don't have a lot of it, so throwing away isn't an option, plus I hate waste.

    If it is the cleanliness of the item that is an issue, could you let the items sit in diluted bleach, thoroughly rinse them and then rewash them to ensure no dirt/germs remain?  If I think something is dirty, then the memory won't go away so I have to tackle it by washing it and ensuring it is clean.  I try to suppress these rules at other people's houses so not to seem rude, but I have been known to leave a full glass of liquid, because the glass wasn't clean or I wasn't happy about the way it has been cleaned.

    On another note, I also can't deal with square plates or crockery with corners!  Drives me mad!