I’ve been very overweight for a long time. Lately I’ve been trying to eat healthier and lose weight. (among dealing with other nutritional deficiencies.)
One of the big problems I have though is that I have a lot of trouble eating foods with weird textures, smells, tastes, etc. This of course includes a lot of vegetables and some kinds of healthier proteins like fish.
A doctor I was working with recommended talking to a nutritionist who is familiar with these kind of problems. However, I didn’t find them to be that helpful. They didn’t really have a good understanding of what kind of things bothered me and didn’t really seem to want to learn or incorporate that into a plan. I got a lot of “Well can’t you just try to put up with some of these things that bother you?” So eventually I gave up with them. So I’m back to eating either miserably small portions of unhealthy foods (which doesn’t really solve the nutrition problem and makes me hungry) or a handful of rather bland healthier foods that are fine to eat but just make me sad.
Does anyone have experience navigating these kinds of problems? What did you do? Do you have any suggestions? Types of foods, recipes, resources that deal with this, etc?
Find a way to change those foods into something you’re comfortable with.
Textures are extremely easy to deal with. You can make soups, chopped salads, sauces, mashes, you can cook for longer, or even cook so long that it completely breaks down. There’s so much cooking information online about how to change stuff up, that you just need to take some time and look up some recipes.
Flavors are also easy to deal with. Roasting vegetables is a game changer in terms of taste, and you can even use them as ingredients in other recipes or meals.
Meal prep and freeze. It’s a lot easier to make a lot of something and store/freeze it for later.
Though cooking vegetables kills the vitamins inside… not all, but most, yes. It’s not unhealthy to eat (a lot healthier than processed food for sure), but a balance between cooked vegetables and fresh ones is what makes up a healthy diet IMO.
I don’t disagree.
Lots of people here suggesting soups, mashes etc. but another way to go here could be drying with a dehydrator.
You can make healthy chips by slicing up, drying and seasoning vegetables. Carrots, beetroot, most root veg really, green beans etc. Mix some chicken stock powder with salt for chicken flavoured chips. Salt and some balsamic vinegar. Experiment with different spices and seasonings. Onion/garlic powders, paprika.
Same with meat. Maybe try making some type of jerky to help with protein.
Just don’t go overboard with the salt.
“Well can’t you just try to put up with some of these things that bother you?”
That’s pretty invalidating.
Personally, I have problems with runny things, eggs, floppy/over cooked vegetables, that squeaky feeling from biting on slightly boiled green beans, and cold food.
Fish is understandable. That can have its funk, flakes, and squeaky squish. I prefer a deep fried tilapia, but that probably wouldn’t help. I can see mahi and salmon being weird with texture.
What vegetables are you trying to get more of?
As far as vegetables go, there are some specific ones that bother me then some more general textural annoyances. One of the specific examples that comes up a lot are non-processed tomatoes. Fine with sauces and ketchup and stuff like that, but actual tomatoes smell weird, they ooze, they’ve got seeds, they’re squishy, etc. This has been kind of a big problem because sooooo many sandwiches and things feature tomato as a major part of the flavor of the dish. I could ask them for no tomato, but then usually all that’s left is like lettuce and some other lower flavor ingredients. At that point I might as well just get something else. Just in general if I have to get rid of some ingredients from something I don’t know enough about what to replace them with to still end up with something that’s supposed to taste good together.
More generally, textures that make the food harder to eat, like there being tough/rigid bits, especially if they’ve got long shapes can be a problem. We get this spring mix for salads, and I kinda tolerate it, but the stems on some of the leaves can be really annoying. Green beans, snap peas, etc also have a similar problem, especially when they have those stringy bits. Then there are things that are just unpleasantly squishy. Then there’s some stuff I can kind of tolerate in some dishes, like bell peppers in a fajita, but I’d pick around them if they were in something I had to more actively select bites of like a stir fry.
It can be a bit tough to explain all the little ins and outs of it all. I kinda want to be able to find new varied/healthy things to eat and actually enjoy, but it’s been tough searching for things that don’t run into some random problem like these.
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For textures. I find cooking them into something else can help, like cauliflower can be boiled and mashed and then mixed into mashed potatoes. Or cooking inconsistent berries into a sauce for a meat or poultry dish. This can work on tastes and smells to an extent as well. Not a guarenteed resolution, but it helped me a lot.
I can relate. It’s a constant struggle. I was able to lose 35lbs over about 10 months, but not until I realized I needed to want to lose the weight more than I wanted to enjoy the comforts of what my palate dictated. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but as you get older, your window to figure out a solution shrinks before that cascade of health issues propagates. Above all else, know that you’re a beautiful and significant person, period. Think about what you really want out of life, and how you can flip that switch.
Additional thoughts: When accommodating autism negatively affects your health, I think the answer is in seeking balance. You can establish a reward system for making healthy decisions throughout the week. Also, there are some psychological issues that creeped in for me - as I lost weight and mobility improved, I somehow felt like less of myself. My clothes started draping a little more, and it felt like I was wasting into a lesser form. Anyway, it was a difficult head-space to navigate, but I feel like I made it through, for the most part.
I agree
My roomate has adhd but, they have this issue.
Anything with a watery crunch they won’t eat. This is pretty much all fruits amd veggies. Cooking healthy is a huge pain. Event the little flakes in ramen packets need to be sifted out. I do all the cooking.
I’ve learned since it’s all texture I just need to eliminate that. Gourds like squash and pumpkin are great because I can just cook the hec out of them then mash them into a paste. This eliminates a lot of nutritional value but it’s better then nothing.
A food processor is also good. I can make anything into a paste. But finding things that taste good is tricky. And only some things can be processed enough to be void of texture.
Smoothies are good and along the same idea. But you can also make sauces just toss on a pasta. One I did was a bunch of tomatoes, spinach, onions. You could also make a squash based sauce.
Last option is just to supplement. Take daily multivitamins, fiber drinks, and eat less. This is not healthy but better then starving
I have ADHD and my sister has autism and I wouldn’t be able to deal with that, especially needing to go through a process to remove the flakes from ramen.
I’m tempted to do group cooking for my roommates so they can eat healthy and charge them an extra $100 per month or so to accommodate it, but I wouldn’t be able to deal with a lot of special requests like that. My entire mentality along with my autistic sister is to want people to get over it.
My wife’s uncle probably has autism and massively over compensates for it and he doesn’t tolerate “food aversion.” He’s also a total shithead and would be completely unhelpful with actually helping someone over come food aversions.
The trick is to get a siv where the flavors and salts get through but the flakes don’t.
I’m a big fan of everything salads. I find that putting a lot of things I like together with a basic salad makes them much more enjoyable.
My basic recipe is:
Healthy: Spring salad mix Cabbage salad mix Grated carrot Grated beet Green peas
Fun: Goat cheese Roasted nuts Sliced steak Cubed apple Different dressings Nutritional yeast
I have severe problems with food. I’ve been taking supplements as a countermeasure. but still found no way to actually eat healthier, especially when I’m too stressed.
If you have an option to, lose weight through exercise. Diet role should be as minimal there as possible (e.g. lower calories intake).
Other nutritional issues are best discussed with nutritionist that explicitly focuses on eating disorders. Bonus points if they focus on eating disorders in autism.
Regular nutritionists focus on general diet composition, eating disorders specialists focus on overcoming or avoiding aversions and behaviors that leads to an unhealthy diet composition.
Find a condiment you like. It’s dijon mustard for me. If that’s not enough, I add a crunchy topping like pumpkin seeds or nuts to distract from the texture.
Aside from “just try to get over it bro,” all I can say is try to find something that you’re ok with. If you can’t, then you need to work on over coming your aversion.
There’s nothing wrong with working around it unless it causes you some sort of impairment.
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