The Autistic Way of Eating: Comfort, Consistency, and Enoughness

By Michelle Labine, PhD

September 2025

If I lived alone, I would probably eat the same three things on repeat something simple like crackers, eggs, maybe a smoothie on a good day. Simplicity feels manageable. Predictable. It doesn’t overwhelm my senses the way food so often can.

But I don’t live alone. Living with my family means cooking, because people need to be fed. These days I meal prep (not because I love it!!) but because it’s one of the few ways I’ve found to make food feel more predictable, less stressful, more reliable and not something I have to navigate from scratch every day.

My relationship with food has always felt distinctly autistic, shaped by a body and brain that experience food differently in ways that aren’t always visible to others. I can love a food in one form and completely reject it in another. Something smooth can feel safe, while texture can make the same food impossible. I rely on repetition (meals on rotation) because it removes one more decision from a day already filled with decision fatigue. And I notice how quickly my appetite can disappear if a smell is too strong or unfamiliar as though my system simply shuts the door.

Over time, I’ve learned to lean into small adaptations that help me stay regulated. Eating foods side by side without them touching. Choosing what I know works instead of forcing what doesn’t. From the outside, it might look particular or rigid. From the inside, it’s practical. Supportive. Necessary.

One of the more unexpected and meaningful parts of parenting as an autistic person has been noticing where my children mirror me. For me and one of my kids, that connection shows up in something as simple as ketchup on everything. It’s predictable, familiar and softens textures that might otherwise feel overwhelming. When I look at our plates and see that same splash of red, I feel a kind of recognition that doesn’t need words an understanding that says, I get you. Turns out we are not alone in our love for the ‘K’ https://thegentleautistic.com/glossary/ketchup/

So much of our culture romanticizes food celebrating adventurous eating, elaborate recipes, long indulgent meals. But for me, eating has never been about exploration or performance. It’s about safety. Nourishment. Finding ease in something that can otherwise feel like work.

Sometimes that means declining a new dish without explanation. Sometimes it means choosing something familiar while others try something different. And sometimes it means sitting with the quiet discomfort of not fitting into what is considered normal.

But the truth I keep coming back to is this: normal isn’t the goal and it isn’t even real in the way we’ve been taught to believe. What matters is what works. What helps my body feel regulated and my mind feel settled. What makes it possible to nourish myself without overwhelm.

Meal prepping is one way I support that. When I know what’s waiting in the fridge, there’s less scrambling, less decision-making, less uncertainty about whether my body will accept what I’m trying to eat. It may not look impressive from the outside but it creates a kind of stability that allows me to show up more fully for myself and for my family.

And if you’ve ever been told you’re too picky, too rigid or too particular about food, I want you to know you’re not alone, and you’re not doing it wrong. Your routines, your safe foods, your preferences are the ways you care for yourself. They’re how you make something overwhelming into something manageable.

And that, in its own way, is nourishment.