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 absolutely adore food, bland and plain or adventurous and spicy. I could eat beans on toast everyday, for every meal for a year and not get bored. (My body wouldn't thank me for it though!!)
I think it's more the texture of food I love. I love chewing crunchy biscuits and feeling the transition to it going 'gooey'. I sometimes ephasise this feeling by eating a biscuit and then half way through chuck something soft in like a jaffa cake! I like a consistent volume of food in my mouth at any given time when I'm eating meals which is why I eat far too fast...
Since I was a child I put tomato sauce on EVERYTHING! It brings familiarity to every meal and a meal isn't the same without it. I've been known to go to very fancy restaurants, have an amazing steak (blue of course), and then request tomato sauce to dip it in!
Textures can also cause me intense displeasure and are one of the few things I cannot control in public. One of the worst offenders for me is pineapple. If I sink my front teeth into raw pineapple I will stand up, I will flap my hands and I will tell it to **** off!
I also love food! I'd have to add a good helping of sweet chilli sauce to that beans on toast though :-)
I keep saying that I don't have a thing about textures but I've been reading through my own replies and it would seem that I do have a thing about mashed/smooth food with unexplained lumps in it! Well there's no telling what the lump might be right? That's interesting that you like the contrast of different food textures, are there any other good food texture combinations?
I've never really been one for tomato sauce, except with burgers or sausages. I am making up for it with the sweet chilli sauce though!
I wonder what it is about the texture of pineapple that causes you to react like that, the crunchiness perhaps?