Published on 12, July, 2020
I've had several food related discussions recently with a few autistic friends of mine, both on and off the forum and I can't help but be intrigued by how autism affects our taste in food. I have a couple of friends who are very hypersensitive to a lot of different tastes and textures and can only eat very bland tasting food of certain specific consistencies and yet there are other friends and also myself that seem to like lots of strong tastes; spices, etc. Food seems to be important to autistic people in one way or another! So I wondered where everyone else is with food. Do you prefer strong tastes and flavours or do you have a lot of food sensitivities that limit what you can eat? I'd like to know other people's opinions and thoughts on this?
I'm really sensitive to what I eat.
At the moment I feel a lot better when I eat no carbs such as potatoes and wheat. I eat mostly vegetables and organic meats and also have a probiotic food like yogurt or kefir, quite a bit of it every day. Just started mixing a bit of raw honey in with the yogurt or kefir too, so yummy! I drink sauerkraut juice too. I eat fruit quite regularly too, mostly apples and grapes. I like to juice my own oranges too using an old-fashioned hand-operated orange press where you squeeze the chopped-in-half fruit onto the press and the liquid gathers in the tray around it.
The probiotics seem to make it easier to digest everything else.
I almost never eat out at the moment though hopefully I'll be able to one day not too far away without getting great digestive upsets.
I mostly drink water.
I tend to avoid sugar at the moment as in the past I noticed things like Coca Cola or ice cream made me very sleepy and feeling overwhelming urges to have more sugar. I do have maple syrup though, for example in a sauce mixed with cider vinegar and thyme with pork steak.
I'm trying to re-introduce carbs but am convinced potatoes are not much good for me. They give my body the shakes, even when cooked super healthily like boiled. I'm going to try some boiled white rice soon.
Roswell said:I drink sauerkraut juice too.
Sauerkraut is so good!
Roswell said:I'm trying to re-introduce carbs but am convinced potatoes are not much good for me. They give my body the shakes, even when cooked super healthily like boiled. I'm going to try some boiled white rice soon.
Potatoes are actually quite a common intolerance, especially when you don't eat them much. They share the same family as tomatoes which can have the same effect. Both belong to the Nightshade family, they contain Solanine which you can build a tolerance to, they are bad for any inflammatory illnesses. In sections of Chinese society they aren't eaten. You can build tolerance but if you have arthiritis or IBS try to avoid them.
Thanks. I'm quite interested in the science behind the food allergies. I'll have a look at this later.
Reading through those the foods correalate to Bu Xi, and the Ch'ang Ming diet. They are very old Chinese concepts, but those foods are there! Many of the grain products there and vegetables are not encouraged.
http://orb.uk.net/mediawiki/index.php/Ch%27ang_Ming#Foods_that_are_NOT_to_be_eaten
Thank you for providing a really useful and informative article! Note to self not to eat tomatoes off of plates that contain lead! The stuff about the tropane alkaloids (I thought Solanine was a steroidal alkaloid but I could be wrong!) intrigued me though and it would explain a number of food sensitivities:
https://wowineverknewthat.wordpress.com/2013/11/29/tomatoes-the-silent-killer/
https://www.food.gov.uk/research/agricultural-contaminants/monitoring-of-tropane-alkaloids-in-food
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/tropane-alkaloid
My brain is now kick started for the day after reading those!!!
Tomatoes were never eaten much in Europe at one point, the Solanine mixed with the metals they used to cook and eat, turning quite nasty.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-the-tomato-was-feared-in-europe-for-more-than-200-years-863735/
It's strange which plants are related to things we eat that are things we'd never consider eating!
Rice is OK. It just depends on how it's got to the packet! I won't elaborate!
Roswell said:You really should give it a go.
Kim Chee is good too, fermented cabbage, but with a little spice. Great on a burger too.
That's useful info about the potatoes, the Chinese are quite wise when it comes to food culture.
You really should give it a go.
I will be sticking to rice for now.
I might have to try some sauerkraut juice as it seems to be so popular!
Maybe better to stick with rice then?