To not feed DS pasta for every meal

[PastaMonsta]

Yet another meal wasted because DS decided he didn’t like it. The list of foods he wants to eat is getting smaller and smaller. Today he decreed unless the meal is pasta based (spaghetti bolognaise, spaghetti carbonara, macaroni cheese) he won’t eat it.

Asides from the fact no one else in the family wants to eat pasta for every meal it’s just not healthy. AIBU? And can you think of any meal suggestions he might like that are like pasta but not?

For context he’s in Y5, has ASD, and is on the 99% percentile for BMI

Pasta’s pretty versatile… if he doesn’t mind trying different sauces and stuff you could use wholemeal pasta and chuck a whole assortment of veg and protein in there to make it nutritious.

Also- I may be misremembering but I don’t think I am- I’m pretty sure I saw in a documentary that if you cook the pasta, fridge it and reheat it the calorific value is way lower.

This is exactly it !

my sons diet is very limited due to ASD and his pead told me the same thing , that grated cheese for example is always going to taste and look the same !

He sounds like he had a good diet for an ASD child which is great so I’d personally go with it or offer a smaller portion . X

Freeze different pasta sauces in ice cube trays then you just have to boil the pasta, drain, put it back on the hob and drop in 1/2 cubes and heat until piping.
You can disguise all sorts of veg in pasta sauce, Mac and cheese is perfect for adding bitter greens like broc/spinach as you can't taste them at all! Just blitz it smooth and you can get away with most things. Carrots in tomato sauce are undetectable as are courgettes. Look at toddler cook books for ideas.
Try him with orzo pasta and maybe see if he'll eat tomato risotto?

It is just that cooked pasta has absorbed water and so has a greater weight and therefore lower kcal/gram.But a portion of pasta does not lose absolute calories by cooking or fridging or reheating.How would that work? Where would they disappear to? Think of the conservation of energy laws of physics!

Re child starvation-Please can we not compare a child who is a fussy eater with a child living in a famine torn country

Today he decreed unless the meal is pasta based (spaghetti bolognaise, spaghetti carbonara, macaroni cheese) he won’t eat it.

Are these examples, or are these the only three meals he will eat?

If they're examples, can you cook your regular meals but he just has them with pasta? Eg a roast dinner but you cook him a pan of pasta, stir in some chopped chicken, add a bit of passata (or serve him plain pasta, with chicken next to it, and some vegetables on the side if having it separate is better for him)? Any dish you'd normally serve with rice he could have with pasta.

Chilled pasta increases its resistant starch so your body absorbs less calories from it. The same with potatoes & rice. Michael Moseley has discussed this often in his intermittent fasting books.

Exactly what I was going to say - my ASD boy is 13 is 51 percentile and eats what he wants. If he gets a bit obsessive about unhealthy stuff then I play with the balance

There are ASD kids out there that cannot function cannot go to school are violent to themselves and the people around them - pasta is not a hill I would die on.