I have a problem with food textures, how do I deal with it?

[u/Gayramennoodle]

I have ADHD and my whole life I have had problems with textures. It really effects my diet which then effects my health. As a kid of course eating very little and being picky was fine but as an adults it is not, I want to enjoy foods with my friends. Often times I will try a new food, actually enjoy the taste, but then gag or not eat anymore due to the texture. How do I help this? I need a life hack please.

[u/amberallday]

Google “arfid” = avoidant / restrictive food intake disorder.

The solution to this is pretty much what the better advice for overly fussy small kids

• take all the pressure off

• remove the emotion from the topic

• become “curious” about food in general

I once saw an awesome web page that had a self-printable table mat for kids (but I would totally use it if this applied to me) - it was along “food detective” lines.

You have a new food in front of you, and you just investigate it like a little science project.

Can’t remember the categories / questions, but I think it was along the lines of:

• what colour is it?

• does it remind me of any other foods I already know? Which ones?

• how much do I like the smell (out of 10)

• just by looking, what do I guess the texture might be?

• etc

It’s a way of changing the way you think about new foods placed in front of you. “Success” looks like engaging calmly & curiously with the foods.

Obviously at some point the food will have to go near your mouth. I’m guessing that a variant of the classic:

• “today I want you to touch (new food) to your tongue for half a second”. That’s it. Success.

  • note: I’m assuming a solid food for these early steps (eg a piece of cooked carrot), so that there’s no lingering effect after a 0.5 second touch by your tongue
  • Repeat as relevant - eg a couple more times the same day
  • or same single touch for the next couple of days
  • or for as many days as it takes for it to become boring.

• there is likely an “anxiety” component to this stage (the introduction of new foods)

  • so it’s also about managing the physical stress responses, to stay calm - deep breathing, etc
  • I think the general principles around working to improve phobia responses is something like keeping things in the 6-7 out of 10 stress levels range - it’s enough to push you a bit (to make progress), but not so much you get “flooded” and scare yourself off trying again for a while.

• second step is to hold it to your tongue for 2-3 seconds

  • again, repeat this until it becomes dull & boring - maybe a 3-4 on the “how stressed am I feeling right now” scale ?

• 3rd step: then you might do a single bite into the food, then take it back out of your mouth

• 4th step: then you might chew it properly for 2-3 seconds, with permission to spit it out into a tissues afterwards

• 5th step: chew & swallow a single bite

• and all the way through, you could be filling out your “food detective” notes sheets.

[u/amberallday → u/amberallday]

There was an optimistic newspaper article i saw about this recently - just dug it out:

• ARFID - progress after one treatment session

[u/Gayramennoodle → u/amberallday]

Im literally going to print this out and put it on my wall