Food

Autistic People tend to have very specific food preferences. It is not uncommon for an Autistic Person to have a food menu of only three or four food choices. This can cause parents of Autistic Children and friends of Autistic Adults concern. In this session, I discuss the topic of food in reference to Autistic People.

Transcript

Hello,

It's me,

Joe,

The Autistic Buddhist,

And in today's session,

I'm going to talk about food.

But before I start,

I just want to clarify something.

I'll be using the term autistic people throughout the session,

And I want you to know that I'm not speaking about all autistic people or all autistic children.

When I use the term autistic people,

I'm referring to autistic individuals that have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1 and whom I have met or known.

Now I can go back to my topic of today's session,

Which is food.

All of us,

Autistic or not,

Have food preferences.

Some people like some foods better than others,

Some we don't like at all.

And in a simple conversation,

The topic can come up quite readily when someone points out a food or talks about a food.

You may hear someone else say,

Oh,

I really like that,

Or another person say,

Oh,

I don't like that at all.

So we all have food preferences.

But for autistic people,

Food preferences can be very specific,

And sometimes they can cause concerns to parents of autistic people or children,

As well as friends.

What I have experienced,

And this includes myself,

Is that autistic people have a very limited food menu,

And their preferences are very precise.

And they're not very open to change or trying new foods.

They like to stick to their preferred menu.

And I have learned over time that this causes parents of autistic children great concern from a nutrition point of view,

And also causes friends of autistic people great concern.

For example,

I know one young man who only eats four things,

And none of his preferred foods contain any vegetables or greens.

So of course,

Friends and parents would see that and be concerned about that young man's nutritional health.

I also know an autistic woman who won't eat anything that she calls slippery,

And that is jello,

Pudding.

She won't eat pie because the filling is slippery,

Or certain soups as well.

For her,

It's a matter of texture,

Not taste.

I also know a parent with a young boy that would not eat bread or anything associated with bread,

Such as cake,

Muffins,

Croissants,

Sliced bread,

Or any other bread products.

And so,

It becomes clear,

As I stated earlier,

That there is a nutritional concern when someone only eats a certain part of the recommended food group,

And ignores the others.

And when these food preferences may lead to an issue of nutrition and health,

I do recommend that a doctor is consulted.

Over the course of time,

Given the autistic people that I have known,

I've worked with,

And I'm aware of,

I have learned a few things that have proven helpful when it comes to addressing this food issue,

And I'm going to share them with you.

Here are some tips that I hope will help autistic parents,

Or friends of autistic people,

In regards to getting an autistic person to either,

A,

Open up to new foods,

Or,

More importantly,

Not making food a battleground,

Which can happen quite often.

First,

Just as I said a minute ago,

Don't make food preferences a battle.

And I've seen this happen quite a bit.

Don't try to argue or convince with an autistic person that they should be eating more of this,

Or less of that.

Their food choices are very specific,

And they're very ingrained.

And they don't like to vary their menu.

And so,

When you challenge their food preferences,

They get quite defiant.

If this challenging continues,

Then an autistic person will come to resent the person who's trying to help them,

And battles will ensue continuously.

And subsequently,

From those battles,

Will come bad behavior.

Secondly,

It's important for people to,

What I call,

Accept the reason.

Using one of the examples I mentioned,

If an autistic person doesn't eat foods that are green,

Or have a certain texture,

Accept that.

You don't like green foods,

That's fine.

Accepting it is not giving permission or encouraging,

It's just simple acceptance.

And it avoids that confrontation that can,

Again,

Lead to resistance and poor behavior.

The other thing I have seen that upsets autistic people in regards to this food issue,

Is when others start,

What I call,

An investigation,

Or more precisely,

A food investigation.

If an autistic person doesn't like a food because of its color,

Shape,

Or texture,

Or the way it looks,

Don't try to find out why.

The autistic person may not even know the core reason themselves,

In some cases.

They just know they don't like it.

For example,

I had worked with a young man one time who didn't like any food that was green.

I was not going to ask him questions about,

Why don't you like green foods?

What about foods that are not as green as some other foods?

So I left that out,

Because an investigation puts someone under suspect,

And autistic people are very keen and very aware of when they're being challenged,

Or they see someone interfering with them.

Let me give you an example of one of my own food preferences,

Or more specifically,

Food issues.

I don't like apples in their raw form.

I like apple pie,

I like apple strudel,

I like apple sauce,

But I don't like apples.

And the reason for that is because I don't like the sound that is made when someone crunches into an apple.

If you can just envision for a second,

Holding an apple in your hand and taking a big bite out of it,

It produces that crunch sound,

And that sound irritates me to no end.

Subsequently,

I don't like celery,

Or carrots,

Or any other hard food that produces that crunch sound.

And so for me,

It's a matter of not texture or preference,

Or shape or color,

But of sound,

Which is also something that autistic people can get upset about.

It would frustrate me if someone started to talk to me trying to figure out why I don't like the apple crunch sound.

All I can say is,

I just don't.

I can't explain why.

It just irritates me.

I have no core explanation or reason for that.

Another good point is to discuss food with the autistic person as a general topic.

The autistic people I have met are insightful,

Quite intelligent,

And it would be okay talking about the foods that they may not like,

For whatever reason,

As a generalized topic.

For example,

Talking to me about apples,

How they're grown,

Where they come from,

How they're processed into apple sauce,

Is fine.

And that makes me a little bit comfortable with the idea of saying,

I don't like that crunch sound.

Another point that may be useful to you is,

And I learned this from an autistic parent,

Is expand the core menu slowly.

So what that means is,

Let's say that a 12-year-old boy only eats hamburgers.

Well,

He may eat two or three other things,

But his core preference is hamburgers.

Not only just hamburgers,

But regarding the boy I'm thinking of,

He only eats the hamburger patty and the buns.

No ketchup,

No mustard,

No pickles,

No lettuce,

No tomatoes,

Nothing.

Just the patty and the buns,

Which is a plain burger.

His parent was talking to him one time and was talking about how much he likes the hamburger meat.

He loves it.

And what she was suggesting to him is,

If you like hamburger meat because you like hamburgers,

Perhaps you may like other things that also have hamburger meat in it.

For example,

Meatloaf.

And she was able to transition him successfully from hamburgers to meatloaf,

And from meatloaf to pasta dish that had a lot of ground beef in it.

Now,

You may say,

Well,

Joe,

He's still focusing on the hamburger meat.

However,

His menu has broadened a little bit,

And a little bit opens to broadening the menu in the future a lot more.

Also,

And this is an important one for me because I've seen it so many times,

Is to parents and caregivers and friends of autistic people,

Please don't politicize the issue.

For children and adults,

Don't use what you consider ethical reasons for what your child or friend should eat.

I worked with parents once who were vegetarians.

Their autistic son loved hot dogs.

He didn't eat them all the time,

But he ate them quite often.

He was introduced to hot dogs by having some when he went to visit a friend and he had lunch there,

And suddenly hot dogs became his thing.

Now,

His parents were not in agreement with that,

Being vegetarians,

And so they would not buy him hot dogs and refuse to serve him hot dogs,

And would instead purchase vegetarian hot dogs.

But this boy knew the difference between a veggie hot dog and a meat hot dog.

He could tell.

And when he was served these veggie hot dogs,

He became very irate.

These are not real.

These are fake.

Why did you buy the fake ones,

He would say.

And what would happen is he would escalate into a tantrum,

What I call an autistic tantrum.

And anybody who has witnessed an autistic child or a person lose absolute self-control and have what in the autistic community some of us call an episode,

Will know that those autistic tantrums are horrific and extremely hard to deal with.

At one point,

When the parents pushed the vegetarian hot dogs and said,

No,

You're not eating these hot dogs.

You need to eat plant-based foods,

So you're eating the veggie hot dogs.

His resistance got so bad and the tantrum that ensued was so intense that the parents had to leave the home.

So I would suggest to you that if you have an ethical or even health reason for not eating a certain type of food,

That you try not to project that to an autistic person.

It would have been,

I think,

Easier to just give them a hot dog than to experience that autistic episode.

They went to their doctor about this and their doctor advised pretty much what I was saying just now.

The battle is not worth it.

The tantrum is not worth it.

Everyone has different food preferences.

You have a vegetarian food preference,

He doesn't.

If you push the food onto him,

He's going to explode.

I'm very sensitive to that topic,

As you may tell,

Because I've seen it happen quite often.

One thing,

Speaking of doctors,

That I found that helps parents and others is to ask the autistic person to take a multivitamin.

In my experience,

Autistic people are not very resistant to taking a multivitamin.

It's explained to them that this is simply a vitamin that will give you more nutrition and make you healthy.

I can't say that I've ever met an autistic person who said,

No,

I'm not taking a multivitamin.

They just take it,

Then continue with their food preferences.

Having said all of that,

I want to say that over the course of time,

Autistic people's food preferences do broaden.

When I was a child,

My autistic food preferences were very narrow,

And now they're quite broad.

They include things that I didn't like as a child,

But I'm okay with now.

I know other autistic people whose food preferences have also broadened,

Because myself and some of the autistic people I've met are naturally curious.

They want to find out.

They like exploring things.

They're more able to try something on the basis of curiosity.

For example,

You don't like vanilla cake,

The taste of vanilla cake.

How about chocolate cake?

It's a cake,

But it's different.

I wonder what that would taste like.

An autistic person may see that as an exploration,

As opposed to trying a new food that they're already hesitant about.

I'm really hopeful that what I've learned over time regarding food,

You have found helpful in managing this food issue with autistic people.

Thank you for listening to this session.

Again,

I do hope that this was useful to you,

And goodbye.

Reviews

Thank you Joe this helps me understand food choices much better so I can be more accommodating to people
Love and blessings to you