Food for Aut(ies)

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I've tried adding yogurt to his beverages and offering him yogurt drinks, he won't consume a significant proportion of it though. What did you use for your son? (I had the same problem growing up.)

I found a chewable tablet supplement. The brand name is Kyolic. It tastes like vanilla ice cream so my boys both like it but the label also says it is fine if you crush it up and add it to juice, milk or soft food if yours won't chew tablets. The tablets are pretty small so crushed up it might not be too hard for you to mask it in something that he does eat.

What about the nutrition "shakes?" Some of them come with probiotics and fiber as well, and they come in lots of flavors so you might be able to find something acceptable. There are people who survive on these and one or two other foods alone.

I recognize that this might seem like giving up, but one thing I recognize from my very high-functioning Aspie son: he learns ONE thing at a time. Do whatever cheat you can to get his nutritional needs met, even if it's astronaut food or people kibble, and then work on finding ways to expand his horizons, one sensory issue or one food at a time.

However, if you want to "sneak" vegetables into your son's diet, there's a whole cookbook on how to do so here: http://www.amazon.com/Deceptively-Delic ... 0061251348

Thanks, I'm going to look for something like that.

I pray for the day that something just clicks for Eric. The only thing he will self-feed is Snack Pack and it has to come straight from the pudding cup. For a while he used an adaptive cuff at school to help him hold his spoon, and his snack is always pudding, I guess I walked right into that one. If I try to get him to use the cuff at home, as soon as he sees it, he has a melt down. It seems like everything with these kids is so rigid, and anything that deviates is cause for tears. It breaks my heart because I want him to expand his life in all areas, but I see the anxiety and the fear and sometimes even the physical struggle that he goes through, but we can't stay in this same spot forever. He can't be 20 years old eating Stage 3 baby food and drinking from a bottle.

Also, the Kyolic brand is good. I use their Kyo-dophilus when Eric has to take antibiotics, to keep things....firm.

Some tricks that worked with my son:

Muffins - in either a homemade or pre-bought store mix, add half a cup of dry cream of wheat cereal, then add some apple juice to compensate for the extra dry ingredient to get the same consistency you would normally have in the batter. Cream of wheat is extremely high in iron (so it totally substitutes for red meat) and decently high in protein.

Have you tried eggs with your son? Eggs have as much protein as meat. Scrambled, hard boiled, fried, egg salad, or even egg muffins (just bake beaten eggs mixed with pureed veggies (baby food veg will do) and some shredded cheese in muffin tins).

Perogies - you can stuff them with sweet potatoes, or potato and any pureed veg you want him to have more of.

Does he eat homemade chicken nuggets? If so, a super easy and healthy recipe is taking all white meat chicken breasts, cut them in nugget portions, dip them in beaten egg and milk, then into finely crushed corn flakes, and bake.

Your son is also old enough to start helping with food prep, which could also get him more interested in eating, if he made it himself. He can stir muffin batter or pour in ingredients, roll perogy dough, or use a rolling pin to roll a plastic baggie filled with corn flakes to make the crumbs.

But my all-time best tip for getting a child to eat veggies is to start a small garden. Even if it's just a raised bed, or balcony garden. Involve him in every step - pouring the soil in, choosing which seeds to plant (peppers are difficult, but carrots, radishes, snap peas or pole beans, and lettuces are all excellent - pumpkins are fun too as they are ready in time for halloween). Have him water and weed it, and harvest it. This sounds like a lot of work but for us it was fun, and counted toward our family time together. And it TOTALLY worked to get my son from not wanting to touch veggies, to enjoying them.

Good luck!

I have a plastic pocket bib that looks like a frog that catches all the food my son drops off his spoon that he reacts the same way to .....

I hope a lot of things click into place for you ... it seems whenever it happens for us it's always something unexpected, something we weren't really working on.



Vegetables in a muffin would be good for us to try. He won't try perogies, I've tried that. I tried making a hybrid homemade chicken nugget that was half vegetables that tasted great, but he wouldn't even give them a chance. I need to try that again though because his father at least really liked them. I can only guess that the breading turned out too brown instead of golden and that's why he wouldn't try them.

He has a serious allergy to raw egg whites and is medically exempt from the flu shot for it, he can consume eggs in small quantities that have been cooked in other things but I don't dare chance giving him a serving of just eggs until he's much older. He can't get it on his skin. The garden thing might work when he's a just little older, but as it is now when he's outside he just wants to run down the street, he can't focus on a garden yet ... and I don't have a back yard ... and I have skunks and rabbits that eat my flowers every year .....

This all sounds tasty. Also, tenor clef, eh? What do you play? Sax? Piano? Vocal cords?

May I suggest an improvement? First, take some boneless chicken thighs, and grind them up finely in a meat grinder. Or just use ground chicken, but it'll be less healthy. Take one to three slices of sandwich bread, soak them in water, wring them out slightly, and mix them throughly with the chicken. For a flavor kick, add Italian dressing to the water where you soak the bread. Form the mixture into nugget shapes, and make sure to compact each piece. The rest of the recipe is the same as yours. (The purpose of wet bread is to add volume, which makes the chicken nuggets softer and more similar to the ones from fast food places.)

I prefer dark meat because it's more flavorful and has healthy trace elements, like iron and zinc, plus it costs less. I use it for most chicken dishes I make, unless I know specifically that dark meat won't work. White meat may be leaner, but it's more dry (unless you baste it properly) and has mostly protein with little else.

For protein, have you experimented using milk, cheese, eggs, or nuts, or adding them into other recipes he likes?

He's lactose intolerant and has a serious egg allergy.
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I didn't want to make nuggets, nuggets aren't a problem. I just wanted to know if anyone had a successful recipe for cookies, waffles, bread etc. that includes vegetables and protein.

Have you thought about maybe looking into some vegan recipes? This would completely eliminate having to work around the milk and egg issue. I'm not vegan, but I have a few friends who are, and they seem to be fairly healthy people, if not a bit militant about factory farming.

If not egg, what about tofu? It comes in several different textures, and can easily be made into puddings, etc. - in fact, there's a tofu-based "yogurt" out there. Word to the wise - rinse it well; you might even need to soak it and then rinse it - the reason many people are averse to tofu is the flavor in the brine, not the flavor in the tofu. It isn't a complete diet, but it will add protein, calcium and a little fiber.

He can eat egg and dairy in small quantities that has been cooked in other things. I tried sifting through recipes online and couldn't find anything that looked like a good fit so I thought I'd ask if anyone here had any first hand experience with it. Tofu is out, last time I checked soy gave him a rash. Peanuts and chicken are fine.

Almonds? Coconut? Oats? All three of these can be found as "milks" which might give you a liquid base to play with...you might try thickening them with gelatin or agar (kanten) to get a puddinglike consistency, and then you can start adding stuff - if not veggies, maybe fruit.

We drink rice milk. He eats a lot of fruit, too much even which is why we need to balance things out.