Eating Habits and Aspergers

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So I was reminded once again this morning that I still have some residual peculiarities in my eating habits, most of which I thought I'd ditched in my childhood and adolescent years. My wife told me this morning (and I did notice, but was too sleepy to care) that I was making unnecessary movements with my fork to eat my eggs, basically chopping or scraping motions w/o picking up the food and eating it.

I've done this before on occasion in my adult years - the other criticism I've gotten is eating too fast. Sort of like the criticism that I used to get about talking too fast, or walking too fast, we don't seem to instinctively know what is a socially acceptable speed to go at for these everyday activities.

I'm thinking as well that AS traits are definitely hereditary among one's siblings, as my brother who I'd describe as borderline AS -definitely less awkward than me though as he had friends in high school unlike me - has exhibited odd eating habits. As a teen he'd always have the same cereal and he would bang the side of the bowl repeatedly with his spoon while eating, and our stepmom would burst into the breakfast room and scream at him to stop.

Sometimes I almost think it's more comorbid Tourette's than AS, which I definitely have. It's hard to separate the two sometimes, as it may be one of those "stimming" behaviours like rocking motions.

Other habits I was accused of in the past, and went to GREAT pains to consciously think about, apply, and overcome:
- in my childhood, I frequently chewed with my mouth open, without realizing it - my stepmom forced me to eat in front of a table mirror for a while
- being rebuked for using my teeth instead of my lips to remove food from my fork after sticking it in my mouth
- again, several unnecessary movements of my fork to pick at the food or the plate without taking any food on the fork and raising it
- hunching over while eating instead of keeping an upright posture (I understand this is a common one for Aspies)
- eating too slowly (now today it's the opposite!)

I really think this all stems from not being intuitively aware of how others perceive us, just like 90% of all the other struggles of AS. And it's no doubt a major date-killer which drags us towards involuntary celibacy. Really the mirror solution, or videotaping oneself and playing it back with someone objectively giving us feedback is the main way to improve, if we then consistently apply that.

I experienced similar difficulties with eating. My main issues were hunching over my food, swallowing too loudly, eating slowly (always the last to finish), and not using spoons properly (it took me quite a while to develop the motor skills for that). To this day I still always smell my food before I eat it.

Consequently, I spent a lot of time in manner school when I was growing up. When I became a living historian, I had to learn 19th century manners.

I was very very fussy when it came to food as a kid. I went through a period of a good number of years eating nothing but cereal- cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I also hated eating in front of other people. I used to handle the cutlery very awkwardly. All of this was never a big deal to my family.

Now I am not as fussy but I do have my favorite dishes that I generally stick to. The odd time I would randomly want a bowl of cereal. I still eat very fast and I'm pretty sure I hunch over the food although no one has commented.
I handle cutlery right but I still have this thing where I use my left hand to do everything- It's definitely very awkward. When I want to cut meat I switch the knife to my left hand and fork to the right, cut and then bring the fork with the cut meat back to my left hand to eat it.
The odd time I don't realize that I am chewing with my mouth open or that I'm chewing loudly.

If people don't like the way I eat that's just too bad for them. I don't care.

When I was younger I couldn't eat in front of other people which got me in trouble a lot at school. I'm not sure when I outgrew that but it lasted well into my teens.

If I cared at all what people thought about my eating habits and manners I'd end up having to go back to only eating at home and never in front of others.

I've always been a very picky eater.

I also eat very slowly, have a bad posture while I eat and grip the fork in an unusual way.

In elementary school they tried to teach me the right grip but they gave up when they realized I went on gripping the fork in the same way.
Not too bad. I ate almost nothing in elementary school. I was really skinny back then.

My woman will remind me to chew with my mouth closed. I just don't consciously think I'm that loud and I must get immersed on whatever TV show is on. Or, It's the "Crinkling" of the cookie or potato chip bag that annoys her, So, I'll have to "Transfer" the contents to a sandwich baggie or bowl. I DO eat too fast as well, I think that's Aspie and old Army habits combined.

One of the people I serve has autism and he does exactly what you described yourself doing with the fork every meal.

I eat extremely slowly and I have a tendency to be the last person to finish eating. I hold the fork in a strange way and change the position of my cup a lot. I usually eat in order of preference - least preferred first. I tend to eat foods upside down (hamburgers, pizza, etc.), but this was corrected with some foods by family when I was a kid. Most particularly, I am extremely picky and obsessive about certain kinds of food; I have trouble eating foods that don't have a crispy texture and I can't eat a lot of things that are white. I get obsessed about certain kinds of food and if I don't have a routine for meals, I will eat the same thing again and again for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until I get sick of them (takes a while, but I eventually do).

And I do hunch over a lot, not just while eating, either.

The strangest thing I am *aware* that I do while eating, behavior-wise, is pull or break finger foods like bread or cookies apart before I eat them and put the pieces in my mouth rather than take a bite. (An ex pointed this out to me). I do also have not only very picky eating habits but very strong aversions to a lot of foods for reasons that some people think are crazy. Most of it involves textures: for instance, anything with that airy-crunchy texture like Cheetos repulses me. But also, I am automatically turned off by anything nugget-shaped (tater tots, donut holes, hush puppies etc) and I can't even WATCH people eat any kind of cereal with milk on it. I have to leave the room. I am a vegetarian only because I have an aversion to meat. Honestly, my old roommates teased me for "just eating condiments" but they weren't far off. I like sauces and things like that and will often eat a small amount of real food just as an excuse to put a ton of sauce on it (NOT ketchup or mayonnaise, though-- ew) and if I'm alone and no one's looking, sometimes I really will just straight up eat some pasta sauce or curry paste or something because I like it and no one's around to say anything. That's part of why I think I like Indian and Ethiopian food so much, because they have a lot of dishes that are basically thick sauce you can just eat without anybody telling you not to.

I eat sandwiches always in a circle, so to get the yucky crust out of the way so I can better enjoy the yummy middle. when I was in the army they made us wolf our food down, they hollered at us to hurry up and eat and get the hell out of their mess hall, and that stuck with me for decades afterwards, contributing to weight problems which bedeviled me for a long time. when I was young I had trouble swallowing more than a dainty forktip of food, I would gag on anything larger. my sibs and parents thought I was absolutely crazy for this reason alone.

i've always held my fork "like a man" rather than "like a lady" and mum used to yell at me about it. now she doesn't.

I'm not even aware of my eating habits if I have any.

I eat fast and walk fast, too, but I never considered those as problems. (Walking fast does annoy me because most people around me are too slow and they are always in my way, but rather than learning to walk slowly, I expect others to step aside so that I can keep walking fast past them.)

I actually don't think the items on your list are really problems. If someone doesn't like any of them, that's his/her problem, not yours. I think this idea of "good eating manners" is one of those "NT things", which unnecessarily restrict people and by which people judge other people.

I have some weird eating and drinking habits, that I think are due to Asperger's. When I eat toast, I eat it in rows, taking 3 or 4 bites per row (depending on how big the slice is). When I drink out of a glass, I have to always drink from the same spot. If there's a blob of glass on the rim, a scratch, etc. I face it away from me. If the glass gets turned around so the spot I was drinking from is facing away from me, I turn it so it's facing me again before I take another drink from it.

Also, as far as textures, I can't eat onions, pineapple, coconut, or raisins because of the texture. I like the taste of onions and pineapple, but I can't eat the foods themselves. I like hawaiian pizza (ham and pineapple for anyone who doesn't know), but I have to pick the pineapple off first. People who see me do it will always say "If you don't like pineapple, why didn't you get something else instead?"
I hate it when cookies have raisins in them. (why ruin a perfectly good cookie by putting raisins in it?)
I can tolerate small amounts of coconut if it's mixed in with something else. For example, my mother makes a dessert called snowballs, that are balls of oats, cocoa and a little coconut mixed together and rolled in more coconut. I take the coconut off the outside, but I can tolerate the coconut on the inside because it's mixed in with the oats. But with onions, I can tell they're there even if they're cut into tiny pieces, and I have to pick them out, which takes forever if they're cut into tiny pieces. I have convinced my mother and brother to use onion powder if they're cooking something that I'm going to eat.

I cannot handle the intense bitter/sour flavors of olives.

Hmm... this is interesting. I eat sandwiches or stuff that's somehow got bread around it, like a hot dog, hamburger, or taco, on weekdays, and pizza on Fridays. I usually eat things going clockwise if I can, but otherwise, I'm not too awful fussy about stuff... so that's all I've got to say here!