Food: Hypersensitive; Hyposensitive or somewhere in the middle?

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?

Parents
  • Strong flavours... I'll drink these straight from the bottle/jar:

    • Vinegar
    • salad cream
    • hot sauce
    • worcester sauce
    • balsamic vinegar
    • juice from jars of chillies
    • pickled onion vinegar
    • pickled beetroot vinegar

    I also love anchovies, coriander, chilli, curry etc.

  • worcester sauce is good, I haven't had any for a while! I like strong flavours but I wouldn't go as far as drinking the above straight from the bottle/jar! Are there any foods that you don't like? Anchovies are good to add flavour to potato gratin.

  • The only 'dislikes' so far have been:

     - liver and kidney (I can recall the urine smell of my mum boiling kidneys!) though I have started eating 'mild' liver e.g. as a starter in a restaurant

     - 'spiky' parsley (it should be banned!)

     - anything with a 'gritty' texture e.g. bone marrow or improperly cleaned bivalves...

    - American chocolate (it smells like sick)

    No real negative issues i.e. it'd be highly unlikely that I'd turn up to a dinner-party and not be able to eat the food.

    For example, I've eaten:

    - Smoked puffin

    - Reindeer

    - Minke whale

    - a fish eye (for a bet)

    - putrified shark (in Iceland, comes in a sealed jar but still puts other people off their food!)

    - Bombay duck (smells/tastes like a burning dog-blanket)

    - dog food from a can (well, you have to find out what it tastes like... right? Liverish and gritty is the answer)

    The more 'extreme' the more likely I am to try it... though I'd draw the line at brains, a sheep eye, tete de veau or those birds they sew into a seal skin and leave buried for 6 months then eat 'raw' etc.

  • That is an interesting array of foods that you have tried! What does smoked Puffin taste like?

    I've tried Cat food from a tin when I was a child. It wasn't great. I wouldn't eat it again!

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