Anyone with food sensitivities?

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I don't know much about them and I was wondering if anyone had them. The only things I don't like are probably tomatoes and meatloaf among other things but that could be considered something even NTs don't like. What I want to know is if you hate certain foods because of texture or maybe the color or how they are cooked... or something like that.

I tried to google this and I got results about autistic diets curing kids with autism... fail. >_> So um yeah, maybe you guys could help me out? It's for my story I'm writing again and my character doesn't like to eat vegetables but I just need to give a good reason why so it doesn't seem like it's just a typical NT thing but something she can't eat due to a certain sensitivity issue.

I don't eat vegetables myself, except well cooked potatoes or peas. For me it's the texture I hate. Vegetables have this crunch I find hard to describe that is really really off-putting. The cellulose/cell walls of plants give them this really distinctive feel when chewed. A lot of the time it's easy to eat around vegetables, such as leaving the side salad or ordering fast food burgers without lettuce and tomato (then taking them out yourself when they inevitably give you a regular burger anyway). It's often embarrassing for me to eat at friends' houses, but it's not something I do often anyway. The more annoying thing is that so many meals that I otherwise love have small slices of onions in them. I always feel just a little nauseous when I start chewing only to bit into a little bit of onion. I've gotten pretty good at sorting through sauces to avoid these slices though, and when one does slip through and ends up in my mouth I either have to take it out or, if it's small enough, move it to the middle of my mouth to avoid being chewed and swallow it whole.

The other annoying thing is that I wasn't diagnosed until recently. Prior to diagnosis it wasn't seen as another symptom, I was just seen as a stubborn teenager who refused to move past the childish phase of not eating vegetables. It also sometimes reflected badly on my parents, as though they hadn't been forceful enough to make me eat my vegetables. I would literally just not eat rather eat vegetables. On a couple of occasions I have tried to force myself to eat broccoli or lettuce but I haven't been able to swallow, my gag reflexes kick in.

I'm not sure how much of this is a bad physical reaction and how much is psychological; I'm sure it's a mixture of both but I don't know how much.

When I was a kid I wouldn't eat mushy stuff, like applesauce. Mashed potatoes were ok the way my mom made them because there were no lumps. But for some reason, yogurt wasn't ok, even if it wasn't the kind with fruit in it. And I couldn't tolerate most soup... liquid with mushy vegetables... no way.

I won't eat most vegetables either, because of the texture. Mushy, won't do it. Crunchy is ok but no seeds. I'm afraid of trying new things, so I've never eaten green/red peppers, or cucumber, or other vegetables most people eat.

Carrots have always been ok. Cauliflower and broccoli became ok as an adult. Those are pretty much the only vegetables I'll eat.

lactose intolerance is the only one i know of for sure. I have random reactions after eating foods occasionally, nothing too severe usually, but i have not been able to identify the culprit or culprits. I would like to get an allergy test some day. I think I have a problem with tomatoes that fast food restaurants use, unless im just being a hypochondriac, but my reaction is pretty consistent, i have gotten a swollen uvula if i have a burger with tomatoes on it. But I really like tomatoes, my mother in law grows tomatoes that are delicious and i dont have any problem after eating those. Now i order burgers without tomatoes, and i haven't had that reaction in a while.

I am lactose intolerant, but that's all I can really think of unless you count picky eater.

I am gluten intolerant...it makes me depressed.
Accidentally ate some yesterday, which resulted in a weird high then a major mood drop, not good.


I know someone who won't eat anything from the belladonna family (potato, tomato, eggplant), and I think this is due to their following the blood type diet.

I guess we should make a distinction between biological allergies/intolerances for some foods, and an unwillingness to eat them due to autism-related sensory sensitivities.

Oh ok, sorry.
[It's a bit mixed up in there though, as many of us on the spectrum have 'sensitivities' whose pathways are not explained yet.
When I was studying nutrition I noticed that generally when people didn't like something, the texture or flavour standing out & causing a reflexive response, it was actually due to a negative physiological reaction that had gone undetected.
Anyone without the necessary information would assume it is something OCD, or a simple dislike.]

I have lots of food sensitivities. I can't eat any fiberous vegtable or fruit. The only vegtables I eat are potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, peas, green beans, and steamed broccoli. That sounds like a long list but it's not. I can't stand to eat meat that has fat on it. I can't eat nuts, creamy peanut butter is fine, but I will gag from the texture of nuts, even chopped. But I can eat cashews strait from the can, but not any other way. Odd, I know. I don't like certain textures mixed. If someone tries to "lessen" a texture of a food by mixing it in with somehing else, it backfires because my mind will start hating the food I like because it will start associating it with the bad food. Unfortunatly, that's a common way to help picky eaters.

My food sensitivites embarass me a lot. A lot of social gatherings are centered around food and I constantly have to ask what is in the food. Lots of people think I am weird because of it. They think I should just eat the food. Yeah, sure I'll eat that food. Then I'll start gagging and spit up all over the place.

I can't eat tomatoes or any kind of fish or anything else that has the same feeling due to the texture. Its not just that I don't want to eat it. The texture of it just makes me feel ill. One time I bit in to a sandwich with tomato and threw up because of it, it was disgusting. But I love ketchup on everything. I also found out yesterday that I have IBS which reacts differently to different kinds of food, which really sucks.

I can pretty much eat anything in front of me. I don't however, like mayonnaise or hard boiled eggs, but if I'm hungry enough or if people are obliging me to eat them/etc, I'll eat them. Mayonnaise I've learned to tolerate, as it's on everything, and oddly I like it better hot (ie, on a McChicken or something) but when I make my own sandwich, never gets mayonnaise. I do like how the Japanese mix mayonnaise and mustard, that's quite good. But hard boiled eggs, don't like. White rice, too, it's not a "hate" thing, but I don't like it compared to brown. It smells like urine when it's cooking. I also don't like white bread, like I like white rolls/bagels/etc, but like, Wonderbread soft kinda bread, I don't like, but again, I can eat it if I have to. But, for the most part, I'd probably give Andrew Zimmern on the travel channel a run for his money, or at the very least I could hang with Bourdain.

Now, as far as foods that cause me medical problems, Aspartame. When I was a kid, after the divorce, my mother got us. My dad wouldn't let us have diet soda very much/ever. My mom would buy a ton of diet Coke to keep her awake, and we'd end up with no soda/other flavored drinks in the house pretty much besides diet Coke, so I'd drink diet Coke all day. I started getting headaches, and my heart would start palpitating weird, like it was beating out of my chest, and I'd get like, blurry vision and stuff. At first I attributed it to the caffeine, but I drank some noncaffeinated diet soda and the same things happened, and I drank a pot of coffee and I was perfectly fine. So once I cut Aspartame out of my diet, my headaches went away. So I try not to touch Aspartame with a 10 foot pole, and refuse it anything. Other artificial sweeteners don't affect me very much, Splenda is a little weird feeling, but not like Aspartame. I don't think saccharin does anything to me, though. But yes, Aspartame is the devil. It kinda sucks, no diet soda, and no minty gum. Almost all minty gum has Aspartame in it, and it's always socially awkward to refuse gum and stuff like that from people, but I like not dying, so yeah.

I have physical food sensitivities - mint and apples.
Weird, but I know someone who can't eat any fruit or veg so it's not the weirdest.

AS-type sensitivities - I used to be unable to eat solid foods.
It was a standard food phobia born from a lack of understanding of how to swallow foods - I lived off soup, custard, semolina, rice pudding, and sugar water. It made me pretty ill as I'd never have a full tummy so had bad tummy aches, my blood sugar was way off and after having TB as a toddler I was left pretty weak. Like with everything else aspie-related it improved at the age of around 7 years old, but for years afterwards I still refused to eat meat because no matter how much you chew it doesn't get smaller like other foods so I didn't know when to swallow. Now I find the sort of 'foods' I ate back then like custard and rice pudding unpleasant due to their texture, jelly too.

I felt that Atkins induction (low carb) was useful to clear my mind, my sinuses, and inflammations in different parts of my body. I've made exceptions with an occasional, Paleo treat (low glycemic index), or finer sweets during a holiday.

I feel as though I can overcome my psychological aversion, against fake sweeteners, but never feel quite right, afterwards. More than the recommended amount of natural sweeteners seems to cause a blood sugar drop. Chemical sweeteners seem to cause nauseous migraine and foggy urine.

Occasional caffeine didn't hurt much, once every other week, but it seemingly accumulated in my system, following daily use.

I can cook tasty sweets and fried foods. Large amounts of white flour, hydrogenated oil, or white sugar - every time - will result in sidepains, which I understand to be pancreatitis.

But, my blood sugar will tend to measure on the low side of normal, which is probably to be expected from a large and active body.

I hate the taste of most dairy products with a passion. This may have something to do with a possible mild lactose intolerance, but I can eat things with dairy in them, so it would have to be extremely mild.

Foods with a slimy texture make me feel ill. For example: watery oatmeal, yogurt, almost all condiments, and mildly slimy or overly buttery noodles (spaghetti or in soup) are some of the worst offenders.

Also, overly chewy foods are very off-putting, especially: steamed carrots, any sort of vegetable casserole, and most fast-food meat.

The feeling of biting something cold makes me cringe, especially hard fruit (like apples), and very frozen ice cream.

Not sure if this is related or not, but anything minty burns in my mouth, for no apparent reason (including toothpaste).

I have this issue with all meat, I don't like the texture, it feels tough and makes me gag.