#8 Eating The Same Foods Everyday
Written by SAPL on July 20th, 2008 in Uncategorized.
Simple Food
The Asperger child was easy to recognize in the school cafeteria as she always brought the same meal for lunch everyday. While other children may have had their parents to blame for this matter (“You eat what we serve you,” “That is too expensive,”) and often protested, the Aspie child actually enjoyed this. And when it came time to barter your Lunchable for someone else’s PB&J, the Aspie never took part in this marketplace. However, no one was ever really interested in exchanging because the meal the Asperger child bought was probably bland and/or weird anyway.
These Aspies grew into adults who retained their restrictive food preferences, usually due to their extreme disgust of many foods, such as tomatoes, or inability to tolerate the texture (that damn sensory sensitivity strikes again!) of many foods, or just the plain love of certain types of foods. Tom still brings pasta with marinara sauce daily for lunch, has not strayed in 10 years, and would probably have to go on leave of absence should there be a reason he couldn’t make it daily.
This restrictive food fetish comes with its perks. Obviously there is less planning involved in the process. When she finally arrives at the cash register after standing in line at Howie’s Bagels for 10 minutes, the Aspie often finds her Everything Bagel already made to her liking and wrapped, ready to ring up provided the workers have spotted her in the back of the line. When entering restaurants frequented, the Asperger is given special dignitaries and greeted with names such as, “Greek Vegetables?” vs. plain Mr. or Mrs. Eisenhower.
The Aspie will find certain items at the store, frozen or shelf, and often empty the shelves with dozens soon after they are stocked, leaving others to wonder why their favorite item is never there even though they’ve requested the manager bring them in week after week. Their questions are answered after a careful stakeout reveals a man rolling a cart away with 30 Momma Mia Spinach Lasagnas just moments after they are put in the freezer.
“We switched distributors and they no longer carry the product,” is one of the worse phrases the Aspie can hear from the grocer when referring to his favorite foods but all is not lost as at least there is opportunity to go to another store who understands the importance of keeping the right distributors that carry his products.
However, the greatest blow, the final dagger that may leave the Aspie picking up the pieces for days, weeks, even months:
“I’m sorry, Sir. The company discontinued the product.”
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:53 am
wow, I did not know there was a blog about this……
September 6th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
holy f*ck. I eat PB&J every day. Since like High school. And I’m wicked smart. Aspies rule.
September 8th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
[…] with Eating The Same Foods Everyday, Aspergers like to stick to eating routines and reliable ways of have their food presented on the […]
December 27th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
This is me. I never knew others were like this.
November 13th, 2009 at 1:13 am
Actually we do not eat the same food every day. Each day it is different food, it may be the same type of food, but it is not the same food that we have already eaten.
May 13th, 2010 at 11:51 am
I can’t stand shredded things on my tongue. If shredded carrots are in a salad I am served, i can’t eat it. The texture and feeling is so horrible.
June 20th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
I can eat cucumbers sliced thick, but not sliced thin.
I do have a variety of foods I like, but for breakfast it has to be some kind of hot cereal!
August 9th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
I do not eat the same thing every day. Kraft makes many different varieties of macaroni and cheese. 😉
May 29th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
This fits me to a T. My restrictive eating habits are a reason I am underweight (with no desire to be so). It also is difficult in social situations since everyone knows if they can actually get me to go out with them they will have to pick a place that serves french fries so i can eat with them.
August 7th, 2011 at 11:47 pm
This explains on how I eat either chicken ramen w/ an egg, beef ramen, or a PB & jelly/banana as my lunch despite having so many other foods available and ordering the same spicy beef w/ noodles soup at my Chinese restaurant. There are also the toasted garlic bagels @ Dunkin’ Doughnuts or “Bomb” burritos when I do work or my QT runs for the SAME drink only from the fountain. All this is swapped out on a fairly rigid schedule too… Damn. My aspbergers is really showing as well as for the earplugs, the being an engineer, and #31 on the list for home. (the sensitivities also cover my fuzzy lined clothes and work on an isolation/ar helmet.
August 29th, 2012 at 11:50 pm
I remember when my friends used to laugh at me for having the same exact grocery list every time I grocery shop. But now I understand….
September 17th, 2012 at 8:08 am
“These Aspies grew into adults who retained their restrictive food preferences, usually due to their extreme disgust of many foods, such as tomatoes, or inability to tolerate the texture (that damn sensory sensitivity strikes again!) of many foods, or just the plain love of certain types of foods”
This is completely me, I won’t eat Mushrooms or Sardines because they are slimy except for cream of mushroom soup provided any actual mushrooms have been removed. The only way I’ll eat pumpkin is again in pumpkin soup. I don’t like Marmite or Vegemite and I’ll only have Promite on crumpets. The best food for someone to get for me is a Pasta with some sort of tomatoes in the sauce (I like tomatoes, but I don’t like Sun-Dried tomatoes) and for a dessert, I’ll happily have ice-cream, but I prefer a tin of peaches in the juice topped with peach yoghurt and the yoghurt must have little bits of peach in it.