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Food & Aspergers

One of the things that worked for me as a child, was seeing my Father eat certain kinds of food that I would normally not have.
I adored my Dad, so anything that he ate I had to try.

I disliked strong tasting foods as a child, bitter, sour, spicy hot, and even with bland foods could taste every spice and vegetable used. Onions burned my tongue, I hated fish of any kind because it was so strong tasting, disliked meat of any kind as well.

Many children don't eat certain foods, because their taste buds are incredibly responsive to different types of foods.

Certain vegetables for example, can be bitter to a child, especially the cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli and brussels sprouts. As well as the nightshade vegetables, which tended to upset my stomach as a child, tomato, potato, bell pepper and eggplant.

As a child I ate carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, peas, zucchini, corn, potatoes, string beans to name a few. Mainly from the family garden. Now I can tolerate vegetables like broccoli but don't eat them as much as others that I like.
 
@Mia

Modeling after another person.
I did this about something I found very
hard to deal with.

Pepto Bismal.

It made me puke.
My mother wanted me to use it sometimes,
but although it went down, it also came back up.

Then I heard Aunt Cindy say, "It's never bothered me.
I keep it in the refrigerator. It's never bothered me."

After hearing that, and once the (nasty, horrid, disgusting)
stuff was chilled, when my mother said I should take it,
I'd think "It's never bothered Aunt Cindy. She said----
and I would repeat this to myself ---"It's never bothered me."

And it worked. :)
-------
On the other hand, after my father's mother's remarks about
oysters, I completely stopped eating them raw, when I was a
as a child. My dad liked them and I was little, so I ate them
when he did, too, with lots of sauce.

Grandma said "Oh, how can you do it? Eat those things with
the guts and all?"

I was like, yeah. No. She's right. :confused: I don't.
And after that, I didn't. Haven't since.
 
Like others said, just make something new, healthy, and consistent with his preferences available to him without fanfare or pressure. My LFA nephew ate an extremely restricted and unhealthy diet when he was young. One day I had ordered Chinese takeout for lunch and knew he was hungry so I put a crunchy vegetable roll on a plate with plenty of the sweet dipping sauce on the side, put it on the coffee table, turned on the TV to one of his favorite shows, and left the room. He ate it, all of it, and came back for another. That is how he first began eating vegetables. But he still won't eat beans. My next step will be pureed black beans on a fish taco with avocado, and I will not tell him what it is unless he asks me. I'll just present it to him and leave the room. If he likes it, I'll tell him it was beans so he can get over his bean phobia. If he doesn't like it, then so be it.
 
Alexandria Holmes said:
Good Morning! If you are a parent of a kiddo on the spectrum, you know the challenges of introducing new foods. What are your methods of introducing new food to your aspie? or if youre on the spectrum what is your preference in the way you try new foods? I would be interested to hear from an adults point of view who is on the spectrum. my stepson is 10 and doesn't really say how he feels when we even ask him about new foods but it clearly gives him great anxiety. thanks in advance for any insight :)
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Yeah, new foods gave me anxiety as a child as well. You might do better to just simply watch the quantity of food that he's eating. Certainly do not force or berate him into eating better. When I was his age, there were a LOT of foods that I did not like. It wasn't until I got to my mid-20s that my tastes in food started to change and get more complex. But by that time, the damage was done and I was horribly overweight. I think a lot of my issues stemmed from my parents. How about trying to involve your stepson in food preparation and cooking? That was something my parents never did with me or my brother.
 
I would like to add that it is imperative that you're extremely careful to not potentially cause an eating disorder. I developed a binge eating disorder as a result of my parents verbal and psychological abuse around their issues with food. So, I got used to eating large quantities, extremely quickly, and in secret. I was very careful to hide the wrappers or containers from food I consumed because I knew if they were discovered, I would just be abused. So in addition to the challenges of being Autistic with Executive Functioning issues, I now have an eating disorder. Please, please whatever you do keep your stepson comfortable ... I cannot emphasize enough how difficult a world it is for an Autistic person so adding stress will cause meltdowns. For an Autistic person, pressure DOES NOT turn coal into diamonds. I truly think if my parents had left well enough alone, that I would have been better off today instead of being a 41 year old morbidly obese, diabetic.

I am very grateful for having Gastric Bypass surgery because I just cannot physically binge anymore. It also triggered some metabolic changes and I actually crave healthier foods. Unhealthy foods generally don't taste good, they don't feel good in my throat, and they do not rest well in my stomach. I am also down 63 pounds, and for the first time in my life, I actually believe that I can and will get to goal weight and stay there.
 
I used to be pushed to eat everything on my plate, so I'm rather open-minded towards new foods now, although I prefer eating my tested 'same-foods' most of the time. Still, as a kid I would still go against some foods due to their smell or how they felt after trying and would sit for hours staring at my plate, not going to eat it for anything. Even now some 'conventional' foods make me nauseous or even cause vomiting.
 
Mattymatt said:
For an Autistic person, pressure DOES NOT turn coal into diamonds.
Click to expand...

I have to agree that too much pressure causes more harm than good. I used to shut down or get panic attacks even on a mention of expectations and what I should or not for a long time after leaving, although I believe that our instances are rather extreme due to the events we went through.
 
Mattymatt said:
I would like to add that it is imperative that you're extremely careful to not potentially cause an eating disorder. I developed a binge eating disorder as a result of my parents verbal and psychological abuse around their issues with food. So, I got used to eating large quantities, extremely quickly, and in secret. I was very careful to hide the wrappers or containers from food I consumed because I knew if they were discovered, I would just be abused. So in addition to the challenges of being Autistic with Executive Functioning issues, I now have an eating disorder. Please, please whatever you do keep your stepson comfortable ... I cannot emphasize enough how difficult a world it is for an Autistic person so adding stress will cause meltdowns. For an Autistic person, pressure DOES NOT turn coal into diamonds. I truly think if my parents had left well enough alone, that I would have been better off today instead of being a 41 year old morbidly obese, diabetic.

I am very grateful for having Gastric Bypass surgery because I just cannot physically binge anymore. It also triggered some metabolic changes and I actually crave healthier foods. Unhealthy foods generally don't taste good, they don't feel good in my throat, and they do not rest well in my stomach. I am also down 63 pounds, and for the first time in my life, I actually believe that I can and will get to goal weight and stay there.
Click to expand...


I'm so sorry to hear about the abuse and the turmoil it has caused in your life. My husband and I go at a very slow pace when it comes to food because we know the anxiety it causes and we have seen if we push too hard it does cause a meltdown. I came up with a plan to introduce new foods to bowen and it goes at his pace and we focus on one food at time. but I am always looking to learn better ways to go about food with bowen. we just want to save our son if possible from health issues due to unhealthy eating. thank you for your advice. you seem like a very determined gentleman and I believe you can reach whatever goals you set for yourself :) hang in there!
 
Alexandria Holmes said:
I'm so sorry to hear about the abuse and the turmoil it has caused in your life. My husband and I go at a very slow pace when it comes to food because we know the anxiety it causes and we have seen if we push too hard it does cause a meltdown. I came up with a plan to introduce new foods to bowen and it goes at his pace and we focus on one food at time. but I am always looking to learn better ways to go about food with bowen. we just want to save our son if possible from health issues due to unhealthy eating. thank you for your advice. you seem like a very determined gentleman and I believe you can reach whatever goals you set for yourself :) hang in there!
Click to expand...
Well, thank you. But I am actually at about my functioning limits at the moment. I don't believe that any goal can be reached anymore - I believe that is largely a myth and I don't foresee it getting any easier. Rather I am learning to work within my limitations and simply trying to carve out a niche for the rest of my life, no matter what that may be. I am not really so young a man anymore. I am a rather old 41 and the unhealthy eating has exacted a toll. The advantage of weight loss surgery is that I no longer have to worry about binging. You have the right approach with food to Bowen. If you keep patient and use positivity, you will be far more likely to get the desired results.
 
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