Why Are Autists Such Picky Eaters?

I remember the diagnostician who told me I had autism listening patiently to my very long list of “food preferences.” At the time, I refused to think of myself as a picky eater, or as someone who refused to eat certain things. Of course I would eat anything someone served. I just liked to think of myself as a “healthy eater.” All of my rules around eating made perfect sense, you see. The only difference between me and other people was that I was more “diligent” about following my rules than they were. I could “stick” to a diet better than anyone I knew — as long as it was a diet I deemed “healthy.”

But when I wrote down my list, the full and unabridged list of “food preferences,” I began to realize that while I had an extremely long list of things that I wouldn’t eat because they were “unhealthy,” there were many things that I had to admit wouldn’t be on other people’s lists of unhealthy foods. I don’t like salads if they have too much dressing. But even if it’s low-fat dressing, I don’t like it. It’s too much “flavor.” I struggle with soda because it gives me the hiccups, though I admit, if I drank more soda, I probably would get hiccups less. For so long, I pretended that it was because soda and salad dressing were unhealthy, but this isn’t true.

I also can’t stand to have more than about a half teaspoon of peanut butter on a sandwich. And it really has little to do with healthy…