INSIDE PERSPECTIVES of AS & Neurodiversity

 

 

 

EATING

 

 

   Eating disorders, food problems and atypical eating habits seem to be very common among Aspies and sensitive people. Being a ‘picky eater’ and having a very narrow diet, usually has good reasons, e.g.:

 

·  Gustatory hypo- & hypersensitivity. Sensitivity to certain tastes may come with being a Highly Sensitive Person in general, and a ‘supertaster’ in particular. Which taste type one belongs to is determined by genes. 

 

   Supertasters have lots of papillae that are closely packed together and small.

·  Perceive all tastes as more intense than other taster types, particularly bitter tastes.

·  Tend to be fussy about their food and have strong food likes and dislikes.

·  Usually don't like coffee, grapefruit, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and spinach.

·  Around 25% of people are said to be super-tasters.

 

   Normal tasters have an average number of medium-sized papillae.

·  Like a large variety of foods but care about how their food is prepared.

·  Around 50% of people are said to be normal tasters.

 

   Nontasters have few papillae (the tiny bumps on the tongue that contain taste buds).

·  Perceive all tastes as less intense than other taster types.

·  Are particularly insensitive to bitter tastes.

·  Are happy with most foods, irrespective of the type of food or its preparation.

·  Around 25% of people are said to be non-tasters.”

- From Are you a supertaster?

 

   “I was a very picky eater when I was younger.  I have a very sensitive sense of taste. Lemon juice on fish would literally burn my tongue like caustic acid. I can taste rotting meat and milk going bad. At the table, sometimes I will guzzle milk like crazy, and sometimes I refuse to even taste it and won't have any until the next gallon is opened. My mom can't figure out why. When I tell her that the milk smells, and sometimes tastes different, she (and my dad, and my sister, if she is visiting) cannot tell the difference.”

- Tom, adult Aspie from USA

 

 “Food has always been another huge problem. There are very few things I can eat, without getting sick. I can't handle anything spicy, even regular black pepper is too much for me.”

- Tracy, adult HSP from USA

 

   A Study of Gustatational Sensitivity in young ASD and Non-ASD individuals found the ASD group to be hypo-sensitive to salt & sweet tastes but hypersensitive to acrid, bitter and ‘neutral’/water.

 

My comment: This to me only indicates that they and may be used to using plenty of salt & sugar in their food; such habituation happens when one gets addicted to something or eats a lot of it. It is the bitter taste-sensitivity that is the real indicator of whether one is a supertaster or not. Many of us are naturally sugar-sensitive and crave salt. The latter I don’t see as a problem but the former may lead to all sorts of physical and mental health issues (see more below).

 

·  It can also be the smell, texture, colour, temperature, the way it is served or made, or other sensory characteristic that makes the food repulsive to a sensitive person.

 

   When I was a kid, I found most foods so repulsive that I’d gag just at the thought of having to put them in my mouth - and when forced to, it often came right back up. Only very slowly have I learned to like more foods than I initially thought I would. But that had to be at my own pace. Being forced to eat things that one is appalled by only creates trauma and stronger resistance.

- Inger, site-author

 

   “About food choices, well I’m better than I was when I was younger, but that still isn’t great.   I’m extremely picky.  So are my kids.  My son only eats one thing for lunch and dinner and sometimes breakfast. Sometimes for breakfast he has crackers or cinnamon toast crunch.  He does eat a few fruits.  That is it. 

 

   “When I was [younger] I only ate a few things.  Dinner was mostly chicken cutlets or pizza or spaghetti and that was it.  My mom used to cook many pounds of chicken cutlets at a time and freeze them into individual portions so the rest of the family could eat different meals and I would actually eat something.  Some people say about my son to stop feeding him what he wants and he’ll eventually be hungry enough to eat what the others are eating.  I know that isn’t so.  My mom tried that with me and I went hungry – period.  There was no way I was eating what they were eating, it was too disgusting to me – whether it be smell or look or texture... it made me want to vomit.  My kids all gag on smells or texture, or sometimes just the look of things too.  Some people will only eat things that are of one color.”

- Wendi, adult Aspie from USA

 

·  Food mixing is something that many spectrumites are appalled by.

 

   I’ve always loved ‘clean,’ basic food, where each food item is separated from the rest and easily identifiable. If I had a burger, I would not want anything on it (since it already tasted so much in itself) and would eat the meat first and the bread after. Mixing bread and meat at the same time was unthinkable to me since I could only process one taste and type of texture at a time. Now I’ve relaxed a bit on that point and may mix certain things. Though not just anything, of course!

- Inger, site-author

 

   “I only wanted to eat what I liked, everything else felt ’wrong’.

I only ate one thing at a time and could’t get down mixed tastes.”

- Missbutterfly, adult Aspie from Sweden

 

·  Repetition. Many Aspies prefer to eat the same thing every day. Although unusual in our modern Western culture, historically many people have lived on a few staple foods with little variation and still flourished. Though perhaps the food was more nutritious back then...