Published on 12, July, 2020
I'll come clean to start with.
I am a very fussy eater. My diet is very bland. It used to drive my mother to despair the way I wouldn't eat much variety of food.
I hate strong flavours, with the exception of kippers and sardines. I eat very little meat. And I eat very few vegetables either, and cooked vegetables are a very big no, except for potatoes in the form of chips or baked.. Lettuce, radish, watercress, and raw carrots are the only other vegetables I eat. The only poultry I will eat is in the form of a boiled or poached hen's egg, except as part of the recipe for a cake. Bread, nearly always wholemeal (I do like white bread but avoid it because it is less healthy.) And milk, butter, cheddar cheese, yoghurt, and fruit (oranges, bananas, apples, peaches, strawberries, .... nothing exotic. ) There is very little else I will eat. I know I won't like it and 'gag' at any attempt. An onion I could detect at fifty paces and it is amazing that others insist there is not onion in what they are eating - many things have onions or onion powder in them which I can detect.. Strong smelling foods I find thoroughly revolting.
This extends to cookery programmes on television, pictures in magazines, etc. I have an absolute aversion. Lidls the supermarket, was selling snails the other day, they looked just like snails collected from the garden. How anyone could put them in their mouth I do not know, they looked disgusting.
This food aversion has been with me throughout my life. Right from just after I was on solid food. Nothing my mother did could force me to eat things I dd not want. I believe this is strongly linked to being autistic.
I am writing this not to ask for advice on how to eat. Nor to express my concern over my diet. I am 62 and am not dead yet and it has not done me a lot of harm. I just wonder how many others of 'mature' years also have a restricted diet. And I also hope that it may reassure parents that if their children are very fussy, as long as they are eating some healthy food they need not worry too much.
The main problems it causes me are that I cannot eat out (except fish and chips with no funny stuff on them, just salt and vinegar.) A meal at a restaurant I would look on as a punishment. Rather than that I would much rather sit down to two pieces of wholemeal bread and butter with a banana.
And if that is what I like, why should that be of concern to others?
As a child , I.was brought up by my mother, having food values drilled into me. That food is sacred and one should eat and drink everything that is set down in front of you. Not leaving any scraps behind .
What a hypocrite.
When she disliked something! !!!!!!!!
Examples.
Yes... People have strong emotions when it comes to.food.
To do my mother credit, she did say much later on that she would never have made me try to eat food I didn't like. Especially not eggs. That was after she developed serious food intolerances. I have a cousin who apparently craved eggs, but then went into wild mood swings afterwards. This was all because my mother had pre eclampsia whilst pregnant. Tbis was not alwayspredictanle news. Conversations could end up being 'if only you'd she'll your beans you'd vote Conservative. '
In fact, in her last years she did as her mother did before her, pretty well sztopped eating altogether.
My parents' riends made a point in joining in the criticism once by saying their Victorian parents brought up a refused meal to the next meal, until it was eaten. From.my parents, there were tales of how the starving Biafrans would be angry to see me turning my my ungrateful nose up at what I was expected to eat.
Not sure how patient I would have beenwith a child that might refuse to eat though. I'd have been worried for their nutrition. Whenmycsts started feuding their Whisks I was told at the nearby pet store they were right to, Whiskas is full of sugar and grains.