SEN/safe food

[Frangipani2]

I am going to preface this by saying this is in no way a criticism and I will never be able to fully understand as I don’t have a SEN child.

i fully can understand some children have safe foods my question is surrounding the food. How do people find what these foods are and why are this usually ’junk’ food. I can understand why fresh fruit might be a no go as each piece can vary so much.

But how can chicken nuggets be ok but prices of chicken not?

i understand I am hugely generalising but it does seem to be a common theme that safe foods are usually junk just wondered if anyone can give a explanation as to why this is.

Uplifting to see lots of sensible and informative posts on this issue.

Omg I get this! Oven chips smell of fish to me!

I'm in my 40's and I have ARFID.

It's about consistency. I can really struggle if something smells 'different' or has a different texture to what I'm expecting.

It's very stressful eating things that aren't on my safe list or that are a variation of something I'd normally eat. Most of the time I just default to what I know.

The issue is uniformity.

One of my DC's safe foods is quorn ham.
They are not vegetarian, but real meat ham is hugely variable, and even processed cheap ham slices have a lot of variety, but every slice of quorn ham is exactly the same as the previous one.

We have safe fruit & veg - peas, carrots, peppers and green granny smith apples. However many apples and carrots end up getting rejected if they deviate from the "correct" look (I eat them then)

"Real" food tends not to be uniform. Real human cooks will vary the recipe occasionally, the exact look and taste won't be the same every time. The anxiety induced by the thought that if you agree to a meal of "lasagne" then you will have no idea until it's on your plate/fork/tongue exactly where on the spectrum of "lasagne" this particular example will be, is just too overwhelming

It's not fishy to me, it's a bit like parmesan cheese or smelly feet.