Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.
Today's article seems massively appropriate for Christmas, which makes me sorry it didn't come up earlier. Events are often a minefield for autistic people and our families. Usually when that's said, you think of awkward social interactions, unwanted hugs or touching, and meltdowns due to over-socialization. All of those things are valid isolating factors for celebrations, but this article touches on a less-considered one: the feeling you get when delicious food is served and you can't have any.
Special diets are commonplace in autism circles. Whether it's a proper food allergy (peanut allergies, gluten intolerance, or lactose intolerance), or something odder, like how dairy just tanks my mood. You can also have religious/cultural restrictions, like how Hindus usually don't eat beef, or moral restrictions, like my tendency to avoid meat unless I know it was sourced humanely and in an environmentally-friendly way.
It can be really frustrating and isolating to look at the spread of holiday foods, lovingly prepared, and have to whittle them down one by one, hoping to find even one you can safely eat. Does the soup have bacon bits on it, making it vegetarian-unfriendly? Are there gluten-filled croutons on the salad? Did someone put vinegar into the marinade for the roast? Perhaps there's alcohol in the dessert? Citric acid in the drinks? You don't know, you have to ask or avoid the questionable dish entirely. The more dietary restrictions you have, the more isolating the experience.
It also makes going out to restaurants complicated. Between myself, my spouse, my mother, and my uncles, there's only a couple restaurants that offer options for all of us. And the area I live in is positively swarming with restaurants, so that's both sad and impressive.
It's why I try to put extra effort into knowing what restrictions my guests will have, when hosting parties or setting up outings. Nothing ruins the experience like feeling left out, as I'm very well aware. For my wedding, thankfully, the restaurant we rented out was exceptionally flexible and adroit at handling dietary restrictions. So there were options for everyone, including one poor guest who had both dairy and gluten intolerances. We'd seen him go hungry at a previous event and were very insistent the sad occurrence not repeat itself.
At this point I think running a larger party would involve having a spreadsheet with each person's dietary restrictions. Maybe that's a good idea overall anyway, especially since it's sometimes weird stuff like citric acid (seriously, it's super common, look at the ingredient lists on various things and boggle along with me), or something absurdly commonplace, like lettuce. It'd be annoying to compile, but probably worthwhile in the long run, I expect.
(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)
Today's article seems massively appropriate for Christmas, which makes me sorry it didn't come up earlier. Events are often a minefield for autistic people and our families. Usually when that's said, you think of awkward social interactions, unwanted hugs or touching, and meltdowns due to over-socialization. All of those things are valid isolating factors for celebrations, but this article touches on a less-considered one: the feeling you get when delicious food is served and you can't have any.
Special diets are commonplace in autism circles. Whether it's a proper food allergy (peanut allergies, gluten intolerance, or lactose intolerance), or something odder, like how dairy just tanks my mood. You can also have religious/cultural restrictions, like how Hindus usually don't eat beef, or moral restrictions, like my tendency to avoid meat unless I know it was sourced humanely and in an environmentally-friendly way.
It can be really frustrating and isolating to look at the spread of holiday foods, lovingly prepared, and have to whittle them down one by one, hoping to find even one you can safely eat. Does the soup have bacon bits on it, making it vegetarian-unfriendly? Are there gluten-filled croutons on the salad? Did someone put vinegar into the marinade for the roast? Perhaps there's alcohol in the dessert? Citric acid in the drinks? You don't know, you have to ask or avoid the questionable dish entirely. The more dietary restrictions you have, the more isolating the experience.
It also makes going out to restaurants complicated. Between myself, my spouse, my mother, and my uncles, there's only a couple restaurants that offer options for all of us. And the area I live in is positively swarming with restaurants, so that's both sad and impressive.
It's why I try to put extra effort into knowing what restrictions my guests will have, when hosting parties or setting up outings. Nothing ruins the experience like feeling left out, as I'm very well aware. For my wedding, thankfully, the restaurant we rented out was exceptionally flexible and adroit at handling dietary restrictions. So there were options for everyone, including one poor guest who had both dairy and gluten intolerances. We'd seen him go hungry at a previous event and were very insistent the sad occurrence not repeat itself.
At this point I think running a larger party would involve having a spreadsheet with each person's dietary restrictions. Maybe that's a good idea overall anyway, especially since it's sometimes weird stuff like citric acid (seriously, it's super common, look at the ingredient lists on various things and boggle along with me), or something absurdly commonplace, like lettuce. It'd be annoying to compile, but probably worthwhile in the long run, I expect.
(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)
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