ARFID-what do you or your child with ARFID eat?

[AuADHD]

I’m sat here eating the same comfort food that was safe back in 1994 and it got me wondering what other people with ARFID eat. What are your safe foods and what are your absolutely won’t eat?
Mine:
Black coffee with vegetarian pâté on toast.
Pizza but preferably homemade or from certain restaurants. If it doesn’t look right though I won’t eat it.
Dry cereal, preferably Frosties, Golden Grahams or Cheerios
My homemade soup
Chips
Biscuits

I eat more than that but not a lot of variety.

Because they are predictable.
A strawberry for example could be too sour/ too sweet/too hard/too squishy and you don't know until it's in your mouth being all weird.
A chicken nugget (or whatever) is always the same therefore safe

My young adult dd eats what I've listed below. It's a bigger list than many and she has made a lot of progress.

Potatoes - roast, chips, waffles
Bananas, Apples
Peanut butter.
Chicken, roast or breaded.
Well done lean beef burger/roast beef
Bread, Toast
Rice Krispies
Plain yoghurt.
Pepperoni pizza - No cheese. This is a new addition.
Fruit pastilles, popcorn

She eats no vegetables, cheese or eggs.
No sauces or wet meals of any kind.
No pasta, noodles or rice.

She is repulsed by cheese. The rest of us are huge cheese lovers.

Specifically Birds Eye chicken bbq griddlers
chips
toast with honey
bananas
raisins/dried apricots
ham sandwich
malt loaf
biscuits
chocolate
oat milk

For 2 and a half years my meals were:

Breakfast: shreddies (the proper ones, no supermarket brands)
Lunch: tomato soup (Heinz only) cheese (orange cheddar only) and bread (warburton's brown only)
Tea: pasta with parmesan

To drink 6 pints of milk per day.

Mum spoke to the dr who said as long as I drank milk he wasn't worried.

35+ years later and I have a much more varied diet but still struggle with fruit and veg.

Ds1 is 18 and his foods are chicken (particularly goujons), sea bass, steak, noodles, curry, cereal bread and chips but will eat small amounts of some other foods. Left to his own devices though and it would just be that.

Thankfully not as the handful of daily vitamins somewhat compensates for the terrible diet!

https://www.arfidawarenessuk.org/

arfid understanding / treatment pathways are very much in infancy in England -

currently it is very much up to parents and carers to work with their children and support them to eat enough calories and through supported graded exposure to widen their diet

often seen with neurodivergence

yep, had huge problems with this. one. He will now take meds, but there has to be an offer of a drink or an accepted biscuit immediately after.

It did take a lot of work, and as a younger child there was a lot of fighting over it until i managed to work it out with trust work.. he will only take them from me though, he doesn't trust anyone else.

As he got older we talked about medicine, what it does, what it's needed for.. it was essential to break that barrier as his food intake is so restricted we have to support with a daily vitamin tablet.

It can, it depends on what the specific issues are - I have problems swallowing sometimes, I easily inhale my own saliva, liquid/runny foods and choke, I have a huge fear of swallowing big things/whole things...

I also have to take two lots of pills per day, 9 in a morning and 5 at night - fortunately now I am an adult I can do it my way which is all in one, sip some water around them and then down on the second swallow which somehow works most of the time - occasionally I will retch/gag, but no ones here yelling at me for doing that so its not the end of the world scenario it once was!

I do have a sliding hiatus hernia which affects swallowing and how things 'sit' once swallowed which probably doesn't help much.

When I was trying to take them one at a time, it was soooo much worse for some reason!

Ds takes a lot of medicines and has always struggled with liquid meds. Thankfully he is great with tablets and the ones which have to be liquid can go down his tube!

i went through my sons list earlier, DS is 18 and had it all his life.

his list is currently static at 17 items and has not deviated from that in nearly 10 years.
He only drinks water.
Food list is
Chips or mashed potato
Sausages (a specific brand)
Breaded Chicken Nuggets
Cheese Pizza
Beef Mince
Pasta & Tomato Pasta Sauce

I won't list the rest as it's quite outing, but he has two options for breakfast and has eaten the same 5 foods for breakfast for 12 years or so with no deviation.

I honestly cant even imagine how frustrating this must be as a parent. I watch this woman on tiktok im not sure if her daughter has arfid or Nd or what she just says fussy 3 year old. But she tries so hard to get her kid to try new foods and always puts a new food with her safe food. Sometimes it works Sometimes it doesnt. But the joy in her voice when her child tries something new. You can tell what a difficult journey they are on.

My boy:
Frosties. Only Kelloggs
Pringles salt and vinegar (again branded)
Doritos blue packet? (Again branded)
Margarita pizza if made correctly
custard creams (must be a pack that has 2 packs in?)
warburtons burger buns with burger cheese and ketchup
fudge bars
chocolate oranges

we still remember the last proper meal he had. Homemade spaghetti bolognaise at 18m and he was covered.

at its worse we only ate cereal for a year. We lose foods so quickly. Especially if something as simple as the colour looks different.

@Kreepture Does your son find it easier now that he’s an adult and can prepare his own food/make his own decisions about what he eats? That’s my friend’s next stage with her son (now 13). She knows that in the next few years, he needs to work out how he’s going to manage his eating without her support. Right now, she’s changed her schedule so that he can come home from school for lunch (he wasn’t eating anything at school). But that won’t be realistic when he’s at college further away from home, for example.

Unfortunately not, we're also dealing with some other issues that mean he can't/won't prep or cook his own food... sensory, anxiety and some additional physical disabilities that affect his co-ordination.

He still has massive issues being around foods not on his safe list, and currently still won't even sit at the table with people who aren't in this house eating things he doesn't. He will, at best, tolerate his 16yo sister who often helps me by making his lunch when she does hers, but otherwise eats on his own.

Even at 18 he is still completely reliant on myself or another person to make his meals for him, and unless something significant shifts for him, always will be.

edited to add: my compromise if i have to go out at lunch is i make him a pack up and leave it in his cool bag on the table and set a reminder for him to eat.

My dd is similar. She has OCD and sensory issues and she is physically repulsed by raw foods, leftovers etc.
It makes her life very difficult. She wants to go away to university this year but sharing accommodation might not be possible for her.

@Kreepture @Weirdaf1 That’s rough. I hope that your DD is able to go to uni @Weirdaf1.

thank you, it is rough, but it's also normal to us, if that makes sense? He is my oldest and everything i do for him is all i know.. i've had more trouble learning to let DD do stuff by herself because she IS capable.

She also has some sensory issues and restricted diet that is probably borderline ARFID, but can prep her own food quite happily, doesn't have the same proximity fear of new foods or foods she dislikes, and it makes it MUCH easier.

i'm currently teaching her to make her own hot meals with the air fryer and microwave. her main battle is she has ADHD which makes for memory/attention problems... something i also battle with and my fridge is covered in instructions and my google nest used for alarms when i'm cooking!

Nothing at all. Ever (except breastmilk). She's had a feeding tube for the last 3 years thankfully.
Saying that, she chewed on a shreddie recently. But it had been in a toy basket going slowly stale for months (🤢) and she's not interested in the fresh ones.

My 15 year old son will eat the below:
Mcdonalds chicken nuggets
Mcdonalds cheeseburger with no onion mustard or pickles
Chips of certain types
Waffles
Penne pasta
Garlic bread
Beadsticks
Chip shop sausage
Cheese pizza co op
Baked potato if mash the inside
Mild cheese
Oreo
Salt and vinegar squares
Sour cream pringles
Gold bears
Non fizzy cola bottles haribo
Dairy milk
Will also only drink milk and gets through 6 pints a day.

I forgot white hovis crust removed
Wotsits
Ketchup

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1C4tEaBTvk/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I am hoping that link works for anyone on facebook. This is a brilliantly supportive group

I suspect my son is affected, as he has always struggled. Took ages to get him off puree when he was a toddler. Is 14 now and close to 6 ft but has been anaemic. Currently on 3 to 4 meals on rotation:
Apples, banana and raw carrot every day (no other fruit or veg)
Cheese sandwiches every day (no other lunch)
Evening meal is cheese and tomato pizza, chicken with gravy and yorkshires, or boiled eggs with a white carb of some kind. Will also eat sausage rolls as an occasional meal.
Will eat white plain pasta, white bread, croissants and plain crisps (sometimes sour cream pretzels or pringles). Butter is fine. Likes chocolate and ice cream.
Drinks fruit juice with no bits, and milk.
Has an iron and multivitamin supplement.

@Kreepture I think that I’d find it particularly hard if my child didn’t do what they wanted to with their life due to food. Like @Weirdaf1’s DD wondering whether she can go to uni-it’s what she wants to do.

@Purpleturtle43I was thinking the same. My son's list is a lot shorter than many on this thread (not that it's a competition and I'm sure it's more complex than foods on a list). Wondering if I have done him a disservice by not getting him help!

DD eats cereal but only specific ones with specific brands of whole milk (some smell funny),
Some fruit prepared in specific ways,
Chips,
Pasta if she can choose how much sauce and grated cheese to put on,
Omelette,
Grated cheese or Nutella sandwiches made in a specific way,
Pain au chocolat,
Mcdonalds nuggets,
Home made banana chocolate muffins.

She used to eat Tesco sushi but they just changed it. I cried. I cried when we lost pizza too. And ham. I can occasionally persuade her to eat smoked salmon in a little pot on its own and the VERY occasional Heck sausage, and she’s been known to manage the very odd McDonald’s pancake, but that’s a couple of times per year. She can’t even try new chocolates or biscuits often.