84. Decoding Your Child’s Favorite Foods: What They’re Really Telling You
In this episode of The Nourishing Autism Podcast, Brittyn shares all about how to understand why your child keeps returning to those same familiar foods. Instead of wondering why they only want beige and crunchy foods, this episode helps you see those choices as clues that can tell you a lot about what feels safe and manageable for your child’s sensory system.
You’ll hear how textures, temperatures, and colors play a role in comfort and regulation, and why certain foods are easier for your child to handle than others. By the end, you’ll walk away with a new understanding of your child’s eating patterns and a more grounded place to start when thinking about introducing new foods without pressure, and without guessing.
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TRANSCRIPT
Hi, I'm Brittyn, a Registered Dietitian and autism sibling. I have a passion for helping parents of neurodivergent kids navigate nutrition and wellness for their child, one small step at a time. Here we'll explore practical nutrition tips, learn from top autism experts, break down the newest research, and share inspirational stories that will empower you to utilize nutrition to help your child feel their best and thrive.
Listen in while picking kids up from school, sitting in a therapy waiting room, taking a quick walk or wherever you find yourself, looking for some inspiration and a friend to guide you along this journey. This is Nourishing Autism.
Welcome back to the Nourishing Autism Podcast. Really excited to dive in this week and help you understand how we are going to decode your child's favorite foods and what those foods are telling us so that we can introduce new foods in a very smart way, and we can also be more efficient with our efforts because we all know introducing new foods is hard and it's tedious. But if we are strategic about it, we can make progress so much quicker.
If you've ever looked at your child's plate and thought, why do they only eat beige and crunchy foods, or maybe they only eat soft or liquid or pureed foods, you are not alone. We see that many children on the autism spectrum have very specific and consistent food preferences, and when we look deeper into those foods, we can actually learn a lot about your child and their food sensory preferences, and that helps us be smart and strategic about introducing new foods so that you're not flailing and trying to figure out new food ideas that are going to be the most successful.
These patterns aren't random or behavioral. They're sensory. And for even kids who you don't think have sensory needs around food, certain colors, temperatures, textures may just feel more safe and may reduce anxiety around food as well. So it's really important that we understand your child's food preferences so that we can build on that and help expand in a way that is going to help them feel the most regulated and help you be the most successful. So today we're going to decode those preferences so that you can understand what your child's favorite foods might be telling you. And before we hop in, in case you missed it, I am launching an app called Food Hopper that will help you decode your child's preferred foods and help you learn which new foods to introduce next that are more likely to be successful.
On the app, you can also build their preferred food list, log exposures and how it went, and expand your child's diet one food at a time. You can go to foodhopper.co to learn more and get on the wait list. We also have that link in the show notes for you if you wanna click on it.
Or DM me "Food Hopper" on Instagram, and I will send you that link. Those on the wait list get early access to our presale that will go live on Black Friday/Cyber Monday. So instead of getting access November 28th, you will get access on November 24th. And the reason why that's important is because we will have a limited number of lifetime memberships, which we will not offer again, and a 50% discount on this subscription price. I am so excited. I cannot wait to get this into your hands. We will have the presale during Black Friday/Cyber Monday, and then the app will be available to download in January.
Now let's dive in into why selective eating is so common in autism. And even if your child is not autistic, you can absolutely still apply many of the things that we are talking about. Now, it's important that we understand how sensory rich of an experience eating is. We have all of our senses happening all at the same time.
Taste, smell, sight, touch, temperature, texture, sound. Everything happens all at once. And for kids who are more prone to sensory overstimulation, eating new foods can be a sensory nightmare, and so we typically see the many kids on the autism spectrum or with sensory sensitivities and kids with ARFID as well.
They are going to prefer a smaller subset of foods that they know that they can expect a sensory experience from. And this is because it's very regulating. A lot of times these foods are also going to be more processed or maybe packaged, and again, that's because they're going to be the same every single time. They always know to expect the same texture, consistency, temperature, and when they know what to expect, that can feel more regulating.
And on top of that, these foods may also be hitting their food sensory preferences. Crunchy is a really common texture that can be really regulating for a lot of kids, and so they may prefer to eat those crunchy foods because it's super regulating.
They also may choose other textures because they're easier to eat and melt in the mouth.
So instead of us asking, why won't they eat more foods, I put new foods on their plate all the time. They won't eat anything. What we can start to understand is why are those new foods not working, and are they not aligning with your child's food sensory preferences?
And the biggest question being, what are their current preferred foods communicating to us? Because when we start listening, we can start understanding and start setting our kids up for success. It's not just them being difficult or refusing to cooperate, or manipulating you.
Now let's decode different sensory experiences. Today I wanna walk you through textures, temperatures, and colors, because all of the different textures, temperatures, and colors can tell us different things about your child. Let's start with textures because that's the biggest food sensory preference, and can make the biggest difference on if your child will accept a new food or not.
I had mentioned crunchy before. For kids who prefer crunchy foods, it may indicate a need for sensory input. This is a little bit more intense. It can be really soothing and provide a form of proprioceptive feedback to the jaw. For kids who prefer soft foods, that might suggest that the child finds harder textures challenging or uncomfortable.
It could also indicate sensitivities to harder, more complex textures. It could also indicate that they have lower muscle tone and they tire out easily by some of those more crunchy, chewy food textures, and it may be a way for them to be able to get in the nutrients that they need from the food if we keep it a softer texture so that their jaw isn't tiring out.
We do see that about a third of kids on the autism spectrum have low muscle tone, and that absolutely can affect eating as well. For kids who prefer creamy textures, that might be preferred by individuals who have difficulties with chewing or disliking the sensation of different pieces in their mouth.
It can be easier to manage and less sensory demanding with those creamy textures. Now, chewy textures can provide a lot of significant sensory feedback to the mouth and jaw, kind of similar to crunchy textures. This can be calming for a lot of kids and help manage sensory needs.
But for kids who do have lower muscle tone, typically chewy is not going to be the food texture that they are going to prefer.
Mushy or purees could be preferred by those with oral sensitivities, or for those who find the act of chewing really challenging or unpleasant. So if you have had a hard time, transitioning your child from those really soft, pureed, mushy textures, I do encourage you to start thinking about their ability to chew well and to maneuver foods in their mouth.
And if you work with a feeding therapist, or speech therapist, occupational therapist, it's definitely worth asking about muscle tone in their mouth and making sure that we're setting them up for success with those food textures where they are going to be able to physically chew and swallow and do that safely as well.
Now let's dig into temperatures. For kids who prefer big temperatures like frozen and hot, that could indicate a desire for intense sensory input. So for frozen food, that can provide a really strong experience that could be really soothing or stimulating in a positive way for many kids. And for really hot foods that can indicate the same thing. However, with hot foods, that also comes with heightened flavors and smells, which can be really overpowering for some kids, but for some kids who are seeking sensory input, the hotness of food paired with the heightened flavors and smells can really hit the spot from a sensory perspective.
When we see kids who prefer more room temperature foods, that can show us that they are not looking for extreme sensory input, they may even be avoiding sensory input by choosing a really neutral temperature. And oftentimes we see this for kids who are more sensory avoidant or they may lean into cold or warm foods that are going to be less intense.
And lastly, let's dig into colors. We may notice that kids prefer bright colors or dark colors or more neutral colors. I will say I do notice that most of the children that I support are going to prefer neutral colors because these are going to be the least overstimulating.
These are going to be foods that are white, brown, and beige and visually will be less overwhelming. It can be really comforting to those who are easily overwhelmed by sensory input. For kids who prefer bright colors like red, orange, and yellow. These are going to be more visually stimulating and some children might be drawn to these colors because they associate them with certain flavors, or they really like the vividness.
Now darker colors like green, purple, and blue can sometimes be more challenging for kids with sensory sensitivities. They're less common in processed foods and more common in fruits and vegetables, which are going to have a variety of textures and just may feel less familiar.
So here are some ideas on how you can observe and decode at home. I'd really like to invite you to have more curiosity and approach this in a way to learn more about your child's preferences so that you can take this information forward and learn how to expand with their sensory needs in mind. So I'd love to invite you to jot down your child's top five foods, and I want you to note the texture, color, and temperature of each of those foods. After you write this down, look to see what they have in common. Do you notice any kind of food sensory profile? This is not about changing anything yet. It's just about understanding their sensory comfort zone. The first step to expanding a child's diet isn't adding new foods, it's understanding why their current ones work so well.
So once we understand a child's sensory preferences, we can meet them there, and that's where the real progress begins. We can also integrate their nutrition needs and help us understand, okay, if a child needs iron, but they have certain sensory preferences around food, how can those two things intersect?
And this is what Food Hopper is aiming to do and solve for parents because this all can be really tricky to understand your child's sensory needs. And it can take a lot of time as a parent learning more about which foods your child prefers and then coming up with new food ideas from there that match their food sensory needs.
So I am really excited to share Food Hopper with you and again, if you are wanting to learn more about Food Hopper and get on the wait list so you can get early access to our Black Friday/Cyber Monday presale, be sure to go to foodhopper.co and add your email to the wait list there. I also wanted to mention, we are running a giveaway right now, which I'm really excited about, I will be giving away three lifetime memberships to three lucky winners.
So you can enter the giveaway by going to foodhopper.co/giveaway or by DMing me "GIVEAWAY" on Instagram, and I will send you the link to join. And lastly, if you wanna learn more and get the inside scoop about Food Hopper, you can also join my broadcast channel called Food Hopper Insiders and I will be sharing the daily scoop with you and how we are developing the app and putting these finishing touches on it. I'll be sharing the biggest sneak peeks there.
Thanks so much for joining me on this week's episode of Nourishing Autism. I hope that this helped you understand your child a little bit better and understand that there is a way forward. We just have to understand more about your child, decode what their sensory preferences are telling us, and then move forward with that information so that we can support your child in expanding their diet in a sensory friendly way.
I'll see you next week on the Nourishing Autism Podcast.
Transcribed by Descript
About Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD
Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD, is a distinguished Registered Dietitian and Autism Nutrition Expert, known for her innovative, sensory-friendly feeding approach to nutrition for children on the autism spectrum. As the founder of the Nourishing Autism Collective, and as an autism sibling herself, Brittyn brings both professional expertise and personal understanding to her work. She empowers families with her expert guidance, helping children receive essential nutrients for optimal health and development. Her strategies are tailored to the unique dietary needs and sensory preferences of each child.
Brittyn's influence extends beyond her membership site through her active social media presence and her popular podcast, 'Nourishing Autism'. Her educational content on Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms has established her as a leading voice in autism nutrition, providing valuable resources, practical advice, and a supportive community for parents and professionals.
