Have you ever rationalized your food habits?

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Like many others here, I have a lot of "unusual" food habits. Certain ways of eating things, this food must be eaten before I eat that food, I must eat all of X before I can even start on Y, and, of course, different foods on my plate can't touch eat other. Before I knew this was a common AS trait (indeed, before I knew I had AS), I had to come up with all sorts of excuses for why I had to eat the way I did. Some people pay attention and ask questions, so I would need an explanation that they could understand. For example, "I don't like the flavor of beans mixed with the spicing on my vegetables, so I don't want them touching each other on my plate." That makes sense to me, of course, and is really quite true. But I'm sure that a lot of people here have similar "odd" food habits that they just need to keep up, but that they didn't always have an easy explanation for. So what do you/did you used to tell people? A few examples of mine:

* Like above, "I don't like the flavors mixing, so I don't want them touching."

* "I like this food better than that one, so I'm saving this one for last."

* "Why would I go from eating this, to that, then back to this again? I already have the taste of this in my mouth, I'd rather finish it before moving on to that."

I eat sandwiches a very specific way, my food can't touch, if my food is in piles on my plate I start with the thing I hate most,then move clockwise, I have to eat all the chocolate off a kit-Kat be for eating it (also in a specific way) etc.

no ones ever asked me why I did this, but I've gotten a few comments that it bugs people.once for Christmas my friend got me a blue tray that preschoolers eat off of cuz she knew I don't like my food touching I'm still not sure if that was a joke or not though...

I eat my food however. There isn't a pattern to it. However, I do have severe OCD unrelated to eating habits.

Up until I moved out of my parents' house (at age 20), I still ate on plates with dividers. My mom was embarrassed that it made me seem like a little kid, but I refused to have more than one thing on my plate otherwise (since my mom didn't care if food touched, so she didn't understand why I had such a problem with it.) As to me, I don't understand why more plates don't come with dividers! I don't have any like that where I live now, so I usually make one dish that is my entire dinner, or I use multiple plates/bowls for each different thing. (Now that I think of it, I really should invest in divided plates. It would give me less dishes to clean...)

Also, I used to be the same way with kit-kats. (I'm vegan now, so I don't eat them anymore. However, if I were to find a non-dairy version, I'm sure I would continue to eat them exactly how I used to.) Similarly, I tend to eat the cookie of the oreo and save the cream for last (opposite of how many people eat them.) It can be a challenge, but it's certainly not impossible!

I don't really have a problem with how I eat my food, it's how much food I eat. I can eat enough to feed four people and still have room for dessert.

Luckily my metabolism is fast enough to keep up with me.

I wouldn't mind having one of those! Actually I'm OK with foods touching as long as it's not the dessert touching the entree or side dish, and I enjoy mixing peas in mashed potatoes.

I've had to explain many times why I don't eat pork when I'm not Jewish or Muslim (I saw a documentary on pigs being slaughtered once, and they are too biologically close to humans for me to want to eat). My family and people that know me make provisions when they have a pork based meal, otherwise I'll load up on veggies and starches. Easter meal was pretty challenging though; lots of egg dishes, but I was the only one who wasn't experiencing discomfort either!

I like my sandwiches to have the food evenly distributed in layers, so every bite has the same consistency.

I don't like meals with too many constituents, it's confusing, I feel I have to understand everything I'm eating as I go along, so simple is best.

Some people's interpretation of things like shepherd's pie, meat loaf and even spaghetti can be a shock to me. Who TF puts olives in shepherd's pie? really

A Greek shepherd?

This one reason why it took me almost 20 years before I ever tried a salad. I'm used to eating, say, a single leaf of romaine lettuce in a very specific way. So the idea of simply throwing it together with a bunch of other foods (some of which I also have specific ways of eating) sounded outrageous.

I'm not sure what your particular dietary restrictions are, but I'm a vegan (for many reasons) so I can completely understand your pork and egg aversions. Luckily, I'm pretty good at cooking, so I can usually whip up a few dishes that I can eat, that everyone else ends up loving in the end, too. (Whatever your restrictions, I recommend the site vegweb.com I get a lot of great ideas from there!)

The 811 idea of loading up on fruit monomeals is very appealing.

Plate & cup has to be plastic. Fork has to have plastic handle. Common sense actually. Dropping the works will be somewhat less a disaster if plastic. Contents of food? Here on the hippie commune, I refused to eat community meals for years but I eventually capitulated. Amazing how low my standards got.

I'm the same with pork. It's a running joke in my house because my boyfriend is partly Jewish and he eats pork, and I was raised a Catholic and I refuse to eat it! I used to be a vegetarian but now I eat tuna and chicken.

I rationalize my food habits by pointing out to people that probably the majority of people in the world eat the same food over and over again. This level of variety in eating is a modern, Western phenomenon. I eat the same few meals over and over and I am fussy about how they are prepared. I do not like things with too many ingredients. I only eat things I ate as a child, the only new thing I've tried as an adult is chicken curry.

I've used the "I don't eat vegetables, because I don't like them"-excuse all my life. Now that I know which textures are hard for me, I've found some vegetables that I can deal with (mostly raw vegetables).