Ideas for ARFID teenager

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DD is autistic and has a fairly limited diet. We are trying things but it’s incredibly difficult as nothing can have ‘chunks’ and she’s funny about meat.

She currently eats pasta with sauce I make and blend, chicken tenders, sausage roll, beans, soup, various potato things - chips/mash/fries/baked. She loves cheese and rolls. She’ll eat eggy bread sometimes.
We’ve been trying some different pasta sauces and it hasn’t been successful, gnocchi which she thought was okay. We’re going to try our own katsu curry this week, with breaded chicken and then a sauce (all separate). I’m going to try a plain risotto and quesadillas again, maybe see if I can put peppers in that.
i did make a veggie chilli from blended sauce and then kidney beans in it (she likes those) but wasn’t impressed.

Im struggling to think of other things that don’t include visible veg or any meat.
To add to the problem she is also coeliac so we can’t just pick things up to try.
She didn’t use to want to try new things but now she will so want to keep going.

Wow an excellent first step that she wants to try.

I recommend this book

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Autistic-Teens-Avoidant-Eating-Workbook/dp/1787758591

Anything by Dr Liz Shea or Dr Gillian Harris is excellent.

Thank you that’s helpful. We haven’t found anything she likes yet but at least she is trying.
The ridiculous thing is I am a very good cook and I make lots of different foods. I was very fussy as a teenager and thought she may grow out of it but I recognise it’s much more complex for her.

Would she try scrambled eggs, or an omelette / tortilla. Can make them cheesy if that helps

what about home made soups?

Amazing she wants to try: my ARFID DD very occasionally will try something new but extremely rarely. I’d be guided by her? One night a week ask her to suggest something she’d like to try?

Also build on adjacent food: if she’ll eat a pasta sauce with cream cheese and passata, will she eat another cream cheese based pasta sauce (for example). Switch one or two ingredients in familiar food to widen the list of ok foods. Good luck

She used to eat leek and potato soup but went off it. I should try some more.
she used to eat omlette but not now.

Problem is she doesn’t know. She sees what her friends eat and is deeply unimpressed as everything has ‘bits’.

Cheese pudding https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/savoury-cheese-pudding/
Egg fried rice
Lentil dal, with naan if she doesn’t like rice
Fish cakes (with a high ratio of mash to fish, and flavoured with lots of cheese)
Cheese flapjacks https://moorlandseater.com/cheesejacks-cheese-oat-snacks/

I think as long as she is willing to keep trying things she is doing well.

My DD with ARFID really struggled when she went to university away from home but after some specialized therapy she started trying things and is doing really well now.

The willingness is a huge plus.

My son has afrid and has gradually got better over the teen years.

he now really likes butter chicken and chicken korma

I think if she would eat chicken in things it would open a lot of possibilities up to her.
fish is a definite no, they gave her fish fingers in primary a lot as they could get gluten free ones and now she says she’s ’scarred for life’.

If she likes beans - I presume baked beans, would she try Heinz five beans. Same sauce, just additional types of beans.

We've been ‘doing Zoe’ and five beans score really highly. Good protein, fibre and vitamins.

This is going to sound nuts but have you ever tried sushi. DS had a very limited diet with ASD and his mate has AFRID and they love Japanese food. The shock when we realised with DS and then finding out his friend loved it too we couldn’t believe it. They now try all sorts in a Japanese restaurant because it has become safe food central.

I should say that his friend had 5 safe beige foods of a specific brand before this revelation.

I’ve just double checked and they are gluten free so thanks!

Some great ideas here.

<My DS (16) has autism and a very restrictive diet, but not as restrictive as ARFID. But it's such a struggle. He cannot cope with cooked vegetables except for pasta sauces and also has an issue with textures.

Like a PP- and most unexpectedly he loves sushi. Really odd. He also loves guacamole as long it is not made by me and is completely smooth. He will eat that with doritos and I used that to move him gently towards hummus and tzatziki but its still a work in progress.

He is NOT keen on trying new things though- so it's great your DD is. Terrific start anyway!

I envy your teenagers diet.

we made some real progress with our arfid dd taking her to Japanese bbq. If yours is celiac that brings some additional issues, but I know some restaurants can handle it.

@ChristmasMantleStatueive made guacamole but wonder if I should buy some to try. I haven’t managed to get her to try hummus yet, she likes garlic as well.

Just to say, with sushi, some is gluten free (I'm gluten intolerant and have an extremely fussy DD, so finding that sushi worked for both of us has made lunches out a LOT easier). Often, the soy sauce comes in a separate bottle, leaving the rest of it uncontaminated. But it does depend how careful your DD needs to be. We've successfully made our own (and I have gluten free soy sauce at home)

"same but different" can be a trigger so going off piste can work. Jerk chicken was one of our early wins, bizarrely. And crispy tofu, coated in cornflour. Not a popular texture to a western palette but a huge win in our autistic, bean loving, I would say ex-ARFID household

She eats really sensible things - pasta sauce and soups are so good for getting the veg in. Hairy Bikers has a lovely katsu recipe in one of the dieters' books which is heavily veg based. If she saw you make it it's exactly like making soup, with dollops of tamari and honey and a bit less water.

If it weren't for the coeliac disease I would say seek out a local takeaway or chain restaurant and work towards her being able to eat one common thing off the menu. Curries are quite often GF and a korma tends to be smooth and not hot. It is socially very useful to have just one thing on the menu you can eat. But perhaps less critical for her as it's much harder to be confident catered food won't make her ill.

Also there are a lot of "high protein" recipes on SM these days using tofu or cottage cheese in sauces or even baking into muffins, bread etc. Might be worth a try.

I have ARFID and have struggled to add variety to my diet.
Has she tried halloumi? I've recently discovered I like it and have been able to use it to replace meat in a lot of dishes.

My 18 yo DS has a few dinners he will eat, but again weirdly loves sushi! Wonder what that is all about? He smothers everything in sriracha sauce too, hotter the better. Eggs were a game changer in terms of protein and now he will have omelettes. He says that he likes what he likes and it gives him comfort, so I try to just make sure he eats a bowl of fruit every day alongside his meals and he takes a multivitamin daily.

My biggest issue with him is that I have to remind him and cook for him three times a day or he genuinely would forget to eat. I have a year or so to try to crack this before he goes to university (a couple of years later than peers for this and other reasons).

My ARFID DD also has always eaten sushi.

I too have a DD with ARFID. I found giving her a budget each month then going out shopping with her to get sone safe foods in stock really helped. It seemed to completely take the pressure off, knowing that if she didn’t like that was on offer she could eat some of her safe foods.

What about curry made with paneer instead of meat? I fry my paneer first so the edges get a little bit crispy, then remove from heat while I make the rest of the sauce. Then add it back in at the end. It improves the texture IMO but it’s still ‘smooth’ in the middle.