I need some advise about eating preferences.

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My son will be 7 next month and was recently diagnosed with Asperger's and some autism. I'm glad that we finally have a direction that we can look for advise and some help. He is my oldest and an amazingly brilliant boy. He has his quirks, but everyone does no matter who you are. One thing that has me concerned though, is his eating preferences.
He is an extremely picky eater. I do understand that, I was as a kid too. My DS just takes it all to an extreme. He won't eat anything green, root veggie, starch, turkey, pork, nuts or anything with a sauce. The sauce thing is really hard because my hubby (who I also suspect of having Asperger's) prefers to eat things cooked in a sauce. We have had the gagging, and vomiting at the table. I'd like to find things that he would enjoy eating. But right now, he only eats because he's required to. We tell him that he has to try things, but we don't believe in forcing him to eat things that are going to upset him like that. I have taken him to the grocery to have him pick out new things to try. He likes to do that, but always ends up hating what he picked out. He is now becoming proud of himself when he tries something new, which trying those things is HUGE for him. He also likes to help in the kitchen, and because he likes to feed people, even though he doesn't want to eat it himself. He doesn't look like he's malnourished, but he's very short for his age. My pediatrician says to give him vitamins and not worry about his eating, but the body doesn't absorb those nutrients as well.
Does anyone have any recommendations to help him with this? I'm not sure if it's just him being a picky boy, or if it's the asperger's. I *think* it's related to the asperger's because when he's stressed, the list of things he will eat narrows even more. My younger 2 kids adore their big brother and are of course following his example. Meal time is a struggle 90% of the time, and I dread it most of the time. I feel like I'm making this more difficult than it needs to be.

I was a constant source of irritation to my parents growing up because I hated foods that were too slouchy or overcooked or foods that had pips in them. Fortunately there are lots of other food choices. I loved raw foods, particularly raw peas and carrots. As you grow older you learn to eat other foods that you would have shunned when you were younger.

Try to figure out what it is about the foods that make him gag and vomit. Ask him, and see if he can tell you himself ... if he can't or doesn't know, look for patterns in what he likes and dislikes. Does he dislike foods that are crunchy? Stringy? Grainy? Slimy? Mushy? Chewy? Have a strong vs. mild taste? A certain kind of taste? A uniform vs. complicated texture/taste?

If it's a texture issue you need to mind the textures of things, and try to change them, if that's possible (sometimes pureeing, or a specific cooking method, or not cooking something at all, will change the texture of a food...how much it changes varies).

If it's a taste issue, you might be able to add disliked foods to liked foods in small amounts without the disliked foods being detected....it depends on the foods involved, your kid's taste sensitivity and discrimination (if he tastes, equally, every individual component of everything he eats regardless of how much of it is in the food, then this will not work). For example, put a small amount of frozen green vegetables into a fruit smoothie. You can also try the different cooking methods/no cooking thing, as cooking changes taste.

Another thing to consider, if there are foods he simply hates but that do not necessarily make him gag and vomit, is whether he might be having problems with the noise the food makes inside his head when it's chewed. I had this issue as a child (not so much now...some foods are still much noisier than others but it doesn't bother me the way it used to).

He likes very mild flavors. but can't stand it completely bland, grainy or gritty. He has a terribly hard time expressing himself, so we try to do a quick analysis of what's so bad about it, but that usually leaves us scratching our heads. Texture is a biggie for him, but it doesn't seem to be consistent. I'm sure he feels consistent, but I can't see the pattern. Hiding foods rarely works as he is extremely sensitive. His 2yr old sister eats more than he does. We don't really do candy in our house, but we started letting him have a piece of candy if he eats at least half of what's on his plate. I mainly decide what to cook based on how much I think I can get him to eat.
As a baby I tried to make the baby food, but quickly gave up because I couldn't get it smooth enough. He also liked more foods when he was younger.
I do hope that he will grow out of some of this. He knows that it's ok not to like everything that comes across his plate. He used to like mac and cheese, but suddenly he can't stand it. He does like smoothies, so I'll try to add some green to them, as long as they don't change the color, it might work. Smoothies, pizza and asian dumplings are currently the only things that he truly likes right now.

It's been such a tough 2 weeks with him. He's been having meltdowns daily and they have always been rare. He's been telling me that he isn't hungry to avoid eating and then ends up with a stomach ache because I couldn't convince him to eat at least a little something, which sparks another meltdown. I have no idea what's triggered all of this because nothing has changed that I can see. He has a very large vocabulary, but doesn't know how to tell me what's wrong. I feel like I'm going through this blind, and I can't imagine how this feels for him.

My DS9 has similar issues with food. We haven't found a solution, and his developmental pediatrician, who used to run a feeding clinic, says that he's growing ok according to the height/weight charts. She didn't really have much to offer beyond saying it's ok to give him higher fat milk and ice cream. He mainly eats chicken nuggets, pizza, cheese sticks, milk, breads, and crunchy carb snacks. His only produce is strawberries and applesauce. He drinks an ensure milkshake for breakfast, too.

My hope is to eventually find a low pressure cooking class for kids, and involve him more in making meals at home, with the hope that he will discover some new foods.

Only 2 weeks he's been more picky---sometimes a bit of a bug that makes a child queasy can make an already picky kid even more so. I've had some luck with probiotics and definitely very strong refusal of any food she related to getting sick after eating.

Our son has had similar issues. It did get better, but it took awhile, and he still doesn't eat what the family eats.

We accommodated his issues and feed him what we knew he would eat, and (using a sectioned plate) put a good we were eating in a separate compartment. If he would not try a bite, we would at least encourage him to touch it. Bribes did not work so well b/c when one has a visceral reaction to doing something, bribery isn't the point. It would be like me being on Fear Factor. You could not pay me enough to do that kind of stuff.

Sometimes special interests help, too. My son is more interested in at least trying something if it is connected with a special interest. If he has a sensory issue with it he won't eat more of it, but it sometimes helps with motivation. Kind of like when small bribes do work. If it is a tiny issue or a small fear it can push a kid to want to try. If it is immediately obviously gross, it won't.

It is not uncommon for kids on the spectrum to have strong, extended picky eating issues.

My son turns 5 on Tuesday, he's exactly the same. However, he has a heightened sensitive to sugar and food textures and thus he feels his choices are extremely limited. Is this possible with your son, or something similar?

Put it this way, the most candy he's 'ate' was holding a sucker in his mouth for 5 seconds so I could take his picture after Halloween 2 years ago. He's never ate a cookie, piece of chocolate, candy, anything with cream but he'll now eat plain white cake and a few spoons of plain vanilla ice cream. That's it for the sweet side. It also means he won't eat fruit like strawberries, apples, oranges, etc. He's tried them all just nearly vomits on contact. Veggies just scare him.

Dinner time is the same struggle with us, he only likes fried stuff Grilled cheese, toast, chicken nuggets, fries, pasta, pancakes and the newest addition is cheese pizza - For the past year he would pick off the cheese/pepperoni and eat just sauce pizza. That's literally his menu. Throw in chips & a plain donut that's what were working with. His pediatrician referred us to a dietitian/nutritionist who works with children but still very limited success, we've added a liquid vitamin for kids to his diet because of health concerns (you can only get the liquid kinds for children at health food stores - not cheap. He won't eat a gummy style vitamin of course).

Getting him to just touch and smell new foods is where were at, they basically say it could take 20+x of touching a specific food before he might take a courage and try it.

If you find something that works - clue me in! lol

Food texture is frequently an issue. Continue to characterize the types of foods he will eat and make a game about cooking and trying foods that are slightly out of his comfort zone. Slowly extend.

Foods are likely to be more appealing if he contributed to making them and the family makes a big deal about how wonderful his cooking is.

My dd is now 20, and is still a very selective eater. She eats about 30 foods. We try to get as much nutrition in those foods as possible. For example, I buy the Smart Choice pasta, since she eats a lot of pasta. I push a bit to get protein into her, and we're now working on "an apple a day". She has taken a multi-vitamin for years.
The limited variety of foods used to drive me crazy, but now I am happy if her choices are fairly healthy, even if limited.
I think with some kids it take more like 100+ exposures for them to get used to a new food. You have to decide which foods are going to be worth that amount of work and time.