Food

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Why so many other autistic people so serious about their food not touching. I could never get why people will be worked up over something so petty.

I know people who I would never think were autistic who don't like their food touching.

I generally don't mind the food touching but there is something that I do hate about it. I generally prefer to eat my vegetables out of a separate bowl to keep the juices from infiltrating the other food, especially other food that does not need to be soaking in juice because it will get soggy. Fried chicken would be a really good example. Or if you have a hamburger and a side of vegetables. Or fries and a vegetable.

Even draining the vegetables in a colander doesn't generally remove enough liquids.

In other words, it's not about the juices, but about the texture of the food I am eating. For other foods that aren't affected by the juices, it's not as big a problem. For example, if I have a link of sausage on the plate, juice from the saurkraut isn't going to affect the texture of the sausage.

Yes, I put my food in separate containers unless I deliberately want to mix them.

A great many of my meals are like one pan meals, often over rice.

Other times they are more traditional with usually an entree, one or two vegetables, rice or potatoes, and a small salad. Usually I eat the salad while the rest are still cooking. If not, then I keep it separate since I hate the juices running into and contaminating the salad.

I'm not certain. I used to be really fussy about food being mixed, but I mostly got over it.

I'm still not fond of a few things though, like:

Salad coming in contact with hot food because it goes wilty.
Mashed potatoes getting contaminated with other food on my plate, like peas.
Food getting contaminated from rice sticking to it.

I assume for myself and many of us the issues are either related to bad texture or a fixation on purity that goes beyond what's rational.

My mother who I suspect may be a bit autistic has a major thing about this. Myself, I admit I do fall into this camp a bit, I mean it's not the end of the world, but I very much prefer to have my food NOT touching. When I take my lunch to work, I make a point of putting things into separate containers. That way, food doesn't get soggy or messed up.

If I am cooking at home, I try to put things on separate plates or bowls. Like the other day I fried up a steak, made a baked potato, broccoli and had a salad. Salad went in a separate bowl obviously, but I had the steak on a large plate, broccoli in its own small bowl and baked potato on a separate plate.

Personally I've never minded foods being mixed or touching each other. Most of the food I like is made by mixing different edibles together. And I don't like "pure" boiled vegetables or plain water. Of course I wouldn't want half a raw onion jammed up next to an unwrapped bar of chocolate in the fridge, but that's just a logical thing - I simply don't like raw onions and I don't think they'd improve the flavour of chocolate.

i tend to eat stuff separately in a meal although it depends on what type of food it is. rice/curry i don't mind having mixed but some chicken type i have on own then do rice with sauce/curry after. I don't mind as much if touching but will just eat in order ish of stuff, like chips then meat then salad/veg.

It doesn't bother me personally. It's probably more common with kids in general, but when you mix foods, it definitely does impact the flavor, texture and sometimes the look of it. Personally, I always preferred my cereals to be on the soggy end of the spectrum, which definitely puts me in the minority.

I'm sure there's other bits to it, but I do think that everybody to some extent does it, it's just that some people feel more strongly about it than others. There's just certain combinations of flavors that most people can't stand.