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 like mushy food, with strong flavours. I find it hard to eat early in my day, if I do eat breakfast, it will be a small bowl of porridge with syrup and salt. Kippers are nice too.
I do like eggs, one of my favourite foods. You can do pretty much what you like with them.
I like lots of foods with quite strong flavours after I'm past that point early in the day. The strongest cheese you can get. Cheese is a favourite. I like smoked foods too, lots of smoked fish. Most meals have a gravy, or sauce. Braised meat, curry, stews, are nice and soft. I eat pickles with most foods too, or things that resemble the flavour, like tamarind. If my plate is dripping with gravy, or sauce I'll eat every scrap. If there are dry things I can't swallow them without water, and lots.
When it comes to sweet stuff like cakes, biscuits, and chocolate I have to eat it with milk, Milo, Lassi, or Horchata. Things of that nature. Dairy-like drinks.
I can't eat liqourice, aniseed, fennel, or even some pears. Anything that has that aniseed-like flavour is a no-no. Maybe holy basil or basil at a push.
I can't drink coffee, it makes me feel ill.
Ice cream is just amazing, mushy, cold, and delicious.
Looking at this the biscuit thread needs a bump..........
What sort of mushy food with strong flavours? I think that a lot of people struggle to eat too soon after waking up, I can't within the first hour after waking but I never miss breakfast otherwise I start getting really faint!
omelettes are good, there are endless different variations of ingredients that can be added to an omelette!
To be fair, I don't think that I would eat spicy or strong flavoured food for breakfast, it would be a bit too much! What are your 3 best cheeses? Smoked fish is good, I don't really see the point in unsmoked fish to be honest! That's odd that you mention about drinking loads of water, because thinking about it I drink loads of water when I'm eating lunch or dinner, easily 2 litres sometimes!
You drink a lot of milk then?
I can't eat aniseed now either. What's holy basil? I've never heard of it before.
I love coffee! Too much!! I had done really well cutting down to two cups a day a little while back, then half term happened!!
Ice cream tastes good but I can't eat it often as my gums are so sensitive to extremes of temperature. Me trying to eat Ice cream ends up being a really torturous slow drawn out process! You're lucky you can eat it!
Biscuit thread bumped ;-)
Kitsune said:What sort of mushy food with strong flavours?
Loads of different types of curry, arrabiata, mofongo (the Panamainan style), meat and tatties, stovies, tagine, gumbo, chicken sofrito, brown stew chicken, run down chicken, and many more.......if it doesn't take much chewing, and is tasty, I'm good.
Kitsune said:omelettes are good, there are endless different variations of ingredients that can be added to an omelette!
Goats cheese and chives is my favourite. Foo Yung is basically an omelette too, Foo Yung Dan is best.
Kitsune said:What are your 3 best cheeses?
That is a very, very tough question. There's lots of cheeses like ricotta, and other cream cheese type cheeses that aren't so much cheeses that are for basic eating. I'll go with ones that are easy to find and cheeseboard type cheeses. Number one is one called Crackler, it's got big soduim lactate crystals in it, real mature. Number two would be Boursin, it's a classic and great to just whack in a lettuce leaf and eat. For number three I'd say Gorgonzola, it is the stench of cheese. So good melted onto a margarita in little bits, it just adds cheese to chesse there. I'm a big fan of cheese, I'll travel for some cheeses, there's a few farms by the roadside in the country near here, and they do unpasturised stuff. If I go to the West Country I put on a few pounds, it's cheese heaven. My cheese rankings change though!
Kitsune said:You drink a lot of milk then?
Lots. Too much.
Kitsune said:I can't eat aniseed now either. What's holy basil? I've never heard of it before.
Aniseed is evil. Holy basil is an asian basil, I use it in stuff like Thai Green Curry, sometimes Tamarind Duck.
Kitsune said:I love coffee! Too much!! I had done really well cutting down to two cups a day a little while back, then half term happened!!
If I drink coffee I feel like a tweaker or crackhead. It really hits me. Not sure why. I can eat coffee cake or ice cream, if I drink it though it makes me feel real weird.
Kitsune said:Ice cream tastes good but I can't eat it often as my gums are so sensitive to extremes of temperature. Me trying to eat Ice cream ends up being a really torturous slow drawn out process! You're lucky you can eat it!
Oh I get those Sensodyne moments! It's just so good I ignore it though!
Kitsune said:Biscuit thread bumped ;-)
Biscuits are a thing of beauty, only with milk though! Apart from digestives, which should be eaten with cheese!
I tried the goats cheese and chive omelette this morning, because I sometimes do an omelette on a Saturday so I thought I’d see if I liked it and if I could get it past my kids. I liked it. My 5 year old is now a goats cheese convert! She loved the goats cheese and loved the omelette, although she did spend a good 5 minutes picking the chives out before eating it ♀️Litlun though was having none of it! The omelette didn’t even make it as far as the sniff test! She sat and looked at it for a couple of minutes then got down from the table. My attempts at passing her pieces of it were met by her promptly pushing my hand away. She also refused to eat a new cereal and then her usual cereal in a different bowl so she eventually ate her usual Cheerios in her usual bowl. I’m guessing the massive meltdown that she had after all that was probably due to me messing about with her breakfast. I think I’d best just stick to her usual Cheerios in her usual purple bowl from now on!