Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello,
For the entirety of my life, I have had a very limited diet because of my senses (especially smell and taste) being so sensitive. It's always been hard for me to try new foods and I really want to now that I'm in my 20's. This has gotten so bad that food as a whole just makes me anxious.
I want to know whether anyone has advice on sensitive senses and trying new foods or any good starter foods to try?
Thank you!
Like with many autism things, the research has been done on children, so a lot of this refers to 'children'. I apologise for that. Ignore it though it works for adults too.
OK, so this is a very in depth booklet that might be a bit overwhelming: https://keltyeatingdisorders.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/CBT-AR_workbook_12.4.18.pdf but you could definitely work through
this is a good article you may find useful on someone else who has been on this journey
https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/autism-eating
This is a shorter guide for teens that I think is a good one to self guide with:
https://youngwomenshealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Food-Chaining-for-ARFID.pdf
In short, there are two main techniques for food widening. The 'food hierarchy' and 'food chaining' and these work best if you combine them.
Food chaining works around using foods that are similar to foods you already can eat.
So for example you might already be able to eat oven chips, from which you could try mostly oven chips with one 1 hash brown (using the food hierarchy if necessary) and then maybe try some loosely crushed potatoes
Food hierarchy works on the steps it takes to actually eat a food, from tolerating its presence in the room to eating it. It can be split into 5 steps with 12 or 32 sub steps.
The 5 main steps are
Tolerate
Smell
Touch
Taste
Eat
The 12 smaller steps, which I prefer personally
1. Tolerate food in the same room
2. Tolerate food on table
3. Tolerate food on plate
4. Touch food and throw away
5. Smell food and throw away
6. Kiss food and throw away
7. Lick food and throw away
8. Lick food x times and throw away (usually 5 times, but work up)
9. Break food with teeth and throw away
10. Chew food x times and throw again (again work up)
11. Eat a small piece
12. Eat an entire piece
A really important aspect is also keeping the food in your diet once you are prepared to eat it. If you don't use it you lose it.
Something mentioned in the article of someone's experience is that relaxing methods like breathing exercises, mindfulness, or distraction can be useful to combat the anxiety when acting with new foods
Feel free to ask questions, that was an info dump sorry it's the autism
WOW!!! Thanks, I will look at all of these!