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