Ideas for ARFID teenager

[BlackCatFanClub]

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.

The thing is I’ve never tried sushi! I can’t really tolerate fish and I LOATHE cucumber and I always assume that’s in it. I’ll have a look.

paneer is an excellent idea.

She has tried a bit of haloumi, but probably needs to be part of something. We did get GF haloumi fries but she wasn’t impressed.

Before sushi DS would never ever have touched fish or vegetables or seaweed 🤣🤣 we brought him to a restaurant abroad planning to order him chips thinking that was about the only thing he would eat but we ordered a really large sushi platter . Out of nowhere with absolutely no prompting or coaxing he tried everything on it, completely unexpected and loved everything. He adores the chop sticks too and wouldn’t give up until he had them figured out. His friend with AFRID who is far more verbal explained that he loves how consistent sushi looks and how the flavours are very bland and naturally separated so you can see exactly what is in it.

DD likes Halloumi done on a griddle pan after watching DC1 do it that way.

The trick is to add things gradually and building successes, we (over 10 years) went from chips and nuggets plus a handful of specific items to eating a decent range of foods and over the subsequent years she’s at a fairly ordinary diet. The breakthrough was in early teens becoming obsessed with all things Korean culture wise and I used it to introduce Korean food and sheer bribery as she wanted things especially to go to gigs. Use whatever you have, remember it’s psychological so it’s possible to break with patience

@ikeepforgetting that’s our biggest issue, I’ve had to drive to her university to scoop her out of a&e and it was down to not eating and fainting. She doesn’t feel hunger at all, nor some other body functions (she can’t feel her bladder being full for instance) she’s sort of independent now, but always a concern

Other soups?
tomato
carrot

curry sauce (blended) with rice/noodles

bulgar

chicken drumsticks

meatballs

A lot of it is ensuring new food is added if one is removed from the list so that it doesn't get smaller. I would recommend against adding a new ingredient to a safe food unless your daughter is in agreement as it then makes go-to things unsafe and could remove them from the list of things she can eat. It is good for GPs to monitor height and weight to keep an eye that Arfid isn't impacting development and growth, although it depends on where you are in the country as to whether help is available. The ideal and most effective is for camhs and dietetics to work together, but tbh that is mainly a pipe dream. It sounds like you deal amazingly with it and absolutely the right way by keeping things low pressure and allowing her to eat what she can. I focus on ensuring I get the supplements right to try to minimise harm. This sheet is awesome for guidance as it shows what is in most of the OTC supplements. https://www.cntw.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/MV-and-M-full-resource-final-2025.pdf
The sprinkles don't taste or change the texture of food so are easy to mix into yoghurt or, in many cases, nutella as that seems to be a common safe food. In regards to suggestions of what to eat, I'm afraid I'm useless as I've just had an evening of trying to get mine to. In a very beige phase other than the occasional tomato soup. It sounds like you are ten steps ahead of me.

Bulgar isn’t GF I’m afraid.

We are trying some sandwiches tomorrow, she’s not keen on the GF bread but we’ll try some things to see if we can mask the taste with PB&J.

she tried sweet chilli sauce last week but complained it was too ‘bitty’ with the flecks of chilli.

Thinking of taste...how about chinese? Sweet and sour prawn balls, as they don't really look like fish. If you can make a gluten free version.

Peanut satay sauce.

My coeliac friend has a lot of sweet potatoes. Go very well with any kind of chicken.

Lentil dahl.

Agree that Asian food is a big win for coeliacs as most of it is gluten free.

Some sort of focus has been key as well for us. DS became pretty obsessed with anime, then this led to a willingness to try sushi (he loves salmon nigiri the most, but does not like fish in any other form). He then became extremely interested in a Japanese youtuber who lives in a tiny apartment in Paris with her cats. She often cooks and always has a miso soup and Japanese pickles and so that then in turn led to a fascination with ramen. Wagamama is absolutely brilliant for allergies of all sorts (including gluiten free as I was for a while when on an exclusion diet) and so that has been good for experimenting.

He won't eat chicken noodle soup if I make it, but if I make it into a chicken ramen with sweetcorn, mange tout, raw broccoli and pepper strips and put it into his special ramen bowl I bought for him (which has an anime cat on it) then he will scoff that and ask for seconds.

Slightly random but cauliflower cheese soup? You can make it mostly potato and a tiny bit of cauliflower, blended, lots of cheese

Have you tried sitting down with a recipe book with a lot of pictures in it and letting her see if she likes anything in it? Or might that be too overwhelming? Or just back fire.

Has she tried filled pasta?

Does minced chicken work? She eats chicken and it might get around the “chunky” aspect?

Good luck!

I suggest sushi and that was a firm no. She has been interested in ramen, but getting good GF noodles is hard and also she doesn’t want any ‘bits’.
She was desperate for filled pasta but we could only get spinach and ricotta and she wasn’t keen. So I got cheese filled gnocchi but she didn’t like the cheese inside.
I think if she wasn’t coeliac she would be further on with what she eats. She didn’t use to eat very much but her appetite is much better now which is why she is trying I think.

Surprised to hear about the noodles. There are plenty of white, brown and black rice noodles on the UK market, and even other grains like buckwheat.

www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/organic-buckwheat-ramen-noodles-4-pack-king-soba-280g.html

Have you tried offering all the foods, but blended? We found that food to dip in sauces was popular. He liked pizza, so I made ‘pizza sauce’ and he dipped his plain pasta in it. He liked burgers, so he dipped his burger in pizza sauce. He gradually moved up to having the burger patty with the pizza sauce on top, then mixed in (Bolognese).

He didn’t like beans, but did like ‘Mexican sauce’- blended beans. I gradually blended less until he coped with actual beans in chilli.

She could be choosing what to blend and how much to blend.

There’s a bit of a discussion on the GF group about good noodles. It’s like pasta, there are ones about but some of them are awful and fall apart or taste weird.
Theres a brand on Amazon thats meant to be amazing but you have to buy a whole box.

If she won’t have meat you should get her on supplements by a dietician or GP

I once knew someone who had eating issues and they loved macaroni cheese

I use the lentil pasta from Sainsbury’s-slightly more expensive but only needs a short amount of cooking and I prefer the texture. Is it the look or texture of meat that she doesn’t like? Would she try quorn?

She’s already on supplements as she’s coeliac and has yearly blood tests. She’s not bad for iron actually, they said it’s normal for a teen girl.

She used to eat macaroni cheese but went off it! We did try quorn for a while and she didn’t take it to it. I am going to see if she’ll try chilli again with normal mince.

My DS loves macaroni cheese. I blend tinned butter beans until smooth in the sauce then add loads of cheese. That's great for protein.

But I SO understand the 'going off' foods thing., My DS does it too. Usually just after I have become excited about a food he will eat and I stock up.

Most teens with autism know like sushi - weird isn’t it? Of all the things to eat cold fish and cold rice

My autistic dd loves sushi and ramen too but I can’t get her to eat a bog standard sandwich or a jacket potato 🤣

I’m autistic and hate the texture of meat, partly because it can be quite unpredictable depending on so many factors. I really like Quorn because it’s the same every single time and completely consistent. Obviously it’s super processed but it’s a good source of protein. Would she be interested in trying it? My autistic son likes the quorn nuggets