On The Feeding of Quirky Mammals, Part 1

One of the things that has long been a challenge for me is eating -- that is, eating both properly and regularly.

Between extreme sensitivity to certain textures (which makes me rather picky), inconsistent body awareness (which makes it difficult to tell when I am hungry), difficulty transitioning between activities, and proneness to sensory overload, there are frequently multiple obstacles between me and a good solid meal.

Growing up of course my parents made sure I was fed (though not always without a fight from me...), but when I reached the age when people are expected to manage that sort of thing on their own, it did not even occur to me to make food a priority, and most of the "eating habits" I developed were, in a word, bad.

To give you an idea of what I mean by "bad", at one point in college I was in a biology lab where we were performing chemical analyses of our urine. Gross, I know, but definitely a bit of a wake-up call for me in that the teacher informed me (upon viewing my results) that I appeared to be "digesting muscle" or something along those lines, and asked me whether I had been eating lately.

I thought about this, and with a start I realized I'd only eaten a small packet of peanut butter crackers that day, and probably the previous few days as well. With all my schoolwork, etc., it simply did not cross my mind that I actually needed food (or water, for that matter)...and since I don't tend to physically "feel" things like hunger and thirst until I am hungry or dehydrated enough to feel really awful, I had been essentially "subsisting" on a diet decidedly lacking in nutritional content.

That was perhaps my first "wake-up call" to the fact that maybe food actually mattered, but it still took me several more years to really internalize that, and has taken more still to figure out what to do about it.

And now, seeing as these days I usually manage to obtain sufficient nutrients and maintain adequate hydration, I thought I would write out some of the things I've discovered to be helpful. I'm not perfect at this stuff, but I've gotten a lot better at it over the past few years, and the subject of nutrition ties very closely into interests in both longevity and disability issues, particularly for those of us on the autistic spectrum who often need to acquire adaptive and self-help skills in atypical ways.

Posts will be presented in series format -- this is the first of what will probably be four or five consecutive entries.

1. Food-Related Sensory Issues

I.

For as long as I can recall I've been a "picky eater". Many of my childhood mealtime memories are, shall we say, less than pleasant -- even though I know I was not kept at the table for "hours", it certainly felt that way when I was attempting to choke down a plateful of something literally gag-inducing.

The majority of things I can't stand are what I would call "texture offenders" -- e.g., most meats (especially anything with fat or gristle), macaroni and cheese from a box (a.k.a., "bowl of slimy entrails"), mayonnaise, and creamed corn (which my brain classes in the same category as "dog vomit"). I didn't like these things as a kid and I don't like them now, and pretty much anything with a slimy texture (or that is stretchy or gelatinous or that somehow seems "pre-chewed") goes on my "avoid" list.

Given this, it's no wonder that my worst period of nutritionally-void eating definitely included a component of "hey, nobody is making me eat horrible slimy things, so I can have whatever I want!" That is, on those occasions on which it actually occurred to me to eat something, I would tend to go for things like, oh, pop-tarts, candy corn, cookies, and chocolate bars. On a "good" day this would be intermingled with some trail mix or a cup of sodium-rich instant ramen.

Looking back, it is very easy to see why I ended up "crashing" (in the "sudden fatigue, shakes, and nausea" sense) every so often during college especially -- I was eating too little overall and way too much sugar when I did eat, and consequently giving myself hypoglycemia-like attacks.

Anyway, it has taken me a while, but I have actually discovered since those dark days of dietary disaster that there are lots of real, healthy foods I genuinely like!

E.g., I have a considerable fondness for raw vegetables, which have the added benefit of not even needing any preparation besides perhaps washing. I also like most cooked vegetables (except okra -- too mucusy), salad greens (including the bitter ones), tofu, veggie burgers, mushrooms, nuts, and beans. Frankly at this point I can't even stand a lot of highly processed things anymore -- they are too sweet, too salty, and just plain too boring for them to even be tempting.

Finding "real food" that I not only tolerate but enjoy has mostly been a matter of experimenting. Once I finally internalized the fact that eating wasn't exactly optional, I became a bit more motivated than before to try different sorts of things.

Sometimes this took the form of starting with something I knew I liked and looking for things that had some property in common with it (such as spiciness -- I'd liked hot sauce on all kinds of things since childhood, but didn't discover curry until I was in my twenties, and upon trying it wondered where it had been all my life!).



Other times, it took the form of trying something that I had rejected as a youngster not for any reason related to taste or texture, but just because I'd thought it was "weird" for some reason (e.g., mushrooms, which I was terrified of for a while for no good reason, but now like in a lot of things).

And other times still it took the form of thinking back to something I hadn't really liked and figuring out that the reason I'd not liked it might have been related to preparation or variety rather than to the food itself (and that there was no reason, for instance, I had to even bother cooking a vegetable if I liked it better raw! It took me years to figure out that I didn't have to be at a picnic to have carrot sticks, etc.).

(It has also helped, of course, that my partner Matt (born and raised in California, Land Of Fresh Year-Round Produce) is an utterly amazing cook who spoils me with his culinary creativity...I've had more different kinds of food since moving out to California from Connecticut in 1996 than I knew existed previously.)

In other words, regardless of what your sensory sensitivities happen to be (and many people have them, not just autistic people), the sheer variety of food out there probably has something you can eat and enjoy and that won't pickle your pancreas or accost your arteries.

II.

Of course depending on where you live it is going to be more difficult to get certain things than others.

And some people have food allergies and other conditions to deal with that can make healthy eating even more of a challenge (e.g., people with Crohn's Disease can have trouble digesting vegetable matter, people with mobility impairments may be limited as to what they can prepare, etc.).

Moreover, there are serious disparities in food availability across geographic and income lines, as well as people that literally gag on everything that isn't Cheez-Whiz and goldfish crackers. The last thing I want to do is write anything that gives the impression I think this stuff is easy, much less for everyone, or that I don't recognize the privilege of my own position (e.g., as someone who currently lives in an apartment with a communal lemon tree in bac that produces fruit year-round).

In other words, I am not presuming everyone has access to, or can even eat, a diet high in fresh veggies and such. Mainly I am just trying to point out that there is a lot more food out there than is obvious, and that even picky eaters might find themselves surprised to find that they actually like some healthy things if they experiment a bit with different ingredients, processing variations, stores, sources, etc.

Furthermore, I also want to write this to emphasize the importance of acknowledging sensory sensitivities in looking to improve your (or someone else's) nutritional intake. While yes, some people (especially young children) are "neophobic" eaters who come to like things they initially balked at trying, sensory sensitivities can be persistent and permanent throughout a person's lifetime, and should not be taken to automatically indicate the person is "rebelling" or "attention seeking" by refusing to eat a particular thing.

I have heard of some cases where people have an overly strong gag reflex due to poor tone in swallowing muscles, etc., and certainly if something like this is occurring then the proper medical professionals should be consulted, but sometimes you're dealing with a simple matter of individual variation in sensory tolerance.

And in any case of texture sensitivity or general pickiness, it is important to work toward finding nutritious things a person can tolerate, so that they don't end up gravitating toward seriously unhealthy items due to not knowing anything else is available.