Those of you with food aversions/issues - can you explain?

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Just about a week ago I read a story on a Facebook page for autistic women about a very stern teacher who would stand and wait for this little girl to drink the glass of milk that was poured for her, but the girl just wouldn't. She'd just sit there in silence, and using glasses and straws that came in interesting shapes or colors didn't work at all and the teacher had no idea why. Then the story changes to how it's seen from the girl's point of view. The milk was always put next to the radiator and would sit there for hours before being given to the kids in class. By that time the milk would take on a yellowish tinge and have little curdled lumps in it that only the girl seemed to notice. So telling her to drink the milk was about the same as telling her to drink warm vomit, which of course would be no more appealing no matter what unusual glasses or straws it was poured into. The girl could have just told this to the teacher, but selective mutism would render her speechless.

I don't know if that helps to know how to help him eat more variety, but I thought it might help to understand why kids on the spectrum have such aversions to food, even when it isn't slightly soured milk. It makes me glad the milk we got in school was refrigerated, though.

OK, here goes. I have real issue with baby foods, to me they are: Porridge, Rice pudding, Sago, Tapioca pudding, Semolina, if fact anything sloppy I find totally disgusting. As for eggs, I retch even thinking about them. As a child I could not even sit in the same room as someone eating eggs, I find them in any form utterly disgusting and even today . All of my food has to be crisp and well done. Soup I can handle but It has to be Tomato (Heinz) Chicken (Heinz) or good quality Mushroom (absolutely not Heinz) As a child I would only eat Burgers, Fish cakes, Fish Fingers, Sausages, Chicken or Chips. I am much better as an adult although I will still not eat any of the above foods. If I eat out and anyone puts gravy on my food (Think of the textures above) I will send it back to the kitchen, I cannot eat it, its disgusting.

For me its a combination of texture, taste, the sensation I associate the taste with (e.g. some foods I would eat for the sake of nostalgia or because I link it to a good experience) and whether or not the environment i'm in is ideal for eating/drinking in, sometimes when i was a kid i felt limited because people were always watching me eat and that always put me off, and as a sort of person with OCD about cleanliness I, even today, admit to using plastic cutlery because my mind thinks metal is never truly clean, recycled plastic may still be dirty or the water still contains germs from the sewage further down the line.

I've hated Cheese and Milk since I was old enough to protest them. It's the texture, smell and taste for me. I don't despise all of dairy and don't mind butter/yogurt/sour cream/ice cream.

For me my issues with food involved difficulty coping with the textures of various foods. My issues were worse when I was younger but have gradually expanded my taste pallet by using CBT and systematic desensitization to foods which I had an aversion to.

For example I didnt have a hamburger till I was like 17 years old because of the texture of ground meats. I couldn't stand the texture of tomatos, I couldn't tolerate the bits of onions in my tomato sauce, didn't like the texture of most vegetables. I was very, very picky. I still have difficulties coping with textures of certain foods. Like Tapioca pudding that I had in the hospital, I liked the taste but couldn't reconcile the texture of the tapioca balls that were in it, so I wouldn't eat it. Up until a month ago, I would avoid rice pudding as well but was able to desensitize myself to my aversion to the texture in rice pudding by challenging my fears, forcing myself to try the food, and allow myself some time to get used to the texture. Had someone else forced me to try rice pudding rather than it being my choice to try it, I would have had a lot of anxiety and probably wouldn't continue to eat it on my own nor enjoy it or I simply would have refused to try it in the first place.

As a kid I would eat the same bowl of oatmeal every morning for like a decade and would sit in the same chair at the same spot at the table and use the same style of glass, same size spoon, etc etc. I would even pour the ingredients in the same order. I had and still have an insistence on sameness, routine, and predictablility which is why I would eat the same food over and over and over. It made my life easier to cope with. If there were any changes, it would have to be changes that I would make on my own initiative rather than changes imposed on me by others or it would cause me a lot of anxiety and stress.

A little?

I forget who or what I am commenting on, but I wanted to add a few anecdotes of my own.

One day when I was in 5th or 6th grade, I was eating a Lunchable (crackers, meat, cheese, and cookies). I loved the oreo cookies! I liked the crackers too. But the cheese was only tolerated and the lunch meat was slimy and shuddered at.

I already had it in my head that I had to eat all the food; I could not imagine any other option though I would have been grateful for one. The only option was what order to eat the food. I could not stand to make little sandwiches out of the crackers, meat, and cheese. If I ate all of the worst first, then I would give up way before I got to the best. If I ate all of the best first, then I would lose my incentive to eat any of the worst.

So I decided to eat one cracker, then one slice of meat, then one slice of cheese, then one cookie. Then I would start again: cracker, meat, cheese, then cookie. I have always done it this way ever since then. But I do not think I could have accepted this if someone else had suggested it (using my own argument).

Now I have so many rituals around eating. I always use the same plate, bowl, cup, and utensils. I always prepare and eat the food the same way.

I do eat more foods, but there are many rules about the preparation of foods, and the allowed combinations of foods eaten in the same dish, meal, and even day.

But these rules and rituals are not restrictive; they allow me to eat foods that I otherwise would not be able to eat.

Many foods that I cannot eat are because the look, smell, taste, or feel make it seem spoiled and I cannot convince myself that it will not make me sick. If I try to eat some anyway, I gag uncontrollably.

But those foods which were all I would eat before, are still featured the most frequently in my menu today.

My favorite is Taco Bell. I eat it so much that my Service Dog led me to a Taco Bell in the mall today while we were just mall walking. "This is where you want to go, right?"

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31st of July, 2013
Diagnosed: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Auditory-Verbal Processing Speed Disorder, and Visual-Motor Processing Speed Disorder.

Weak Emerging Social Communicator (The Social Thinking-­Social Communication Profile by Michelle Garcia Winner, Pamela Crooke and Stephanie Madrigal)

"I am silently correcting your grammar."