Thriving Autisticly: Food

This post about autism and food is part of a series on thriving as an autistic person. We live in a world that is not always kind or accommodating for people who are different. Not only that, but autistic and other neurodiverse people can have very fragile health and specific medical needs. Finding out what works for you is a significant endeavor. This week I’ll be focusing on food and supplementation so you (or your loved one) can live your best life. The first post, which prompted this series, is here.

As you read this series, please remember autistic people can have very different experiences. I’ll tell you what works for me, and do my best to explain other things I’ve heard of. But in the end, you are your own best resource. Find what works for you. Find doctors and specialists that will help you explore your options intelligently and safely. How good or bad you feel every day is up to you.

Eating Better Food

Nutrition is the first category I’m going to highlight in this series. Why? Well, you know that saying, “You are what you eat,” right? A literal-minded person may start imagining being constructed from pizza slices, loaves of bread, and chicken wings.

Which of course isn’t literally how it works… but. What we put in our bodies is turned into fuel. If we put good quality nutritious food into our bodies, it makes good fuel and we do well. We can handle bad situations better, manage ourselves and our lives easier, and overall be happier. If we put bad food into our bodies, we don’t do so well and we don’t feel as good. New things and changes become harder to handle. Depression and anxiety plague our thoughts. Fogginess shrouds our mental landscape, making it hard to focus. Food can make autism feel far better or far worse. It just depends on what you eat.

Choosing Nutritious Food

A great deal of the food sold in grocery stores today tastes good, but effectively makes you sick if you eat it. Sugary foods, like candy, cookies, pop/soda, and cereal (yes, cereal) are big offenders here. So are ultra-processed foods like TV dinners, white bread, pasta, pizza, and most sweets. I did a walkthrough of my local grocery store a year ago where I talked about how much of the store I end up skipping- it was most of the store.

There’s a whole fad industry around telling you what to eat and why. In any given year, eggs might be considered healthy or unhealthy. Ignore all that mess. It’s mainly a scam to make money on gullible people. You won’t find actual good information about nutrition there. The actual food science is found in peer-reviewed articles, not pop science snippets and magazines.

What you want to aim for here is eating whole foods. Whole grains, fruit, vegetables, leaner meats (and less meat overall). A good rule of thumb is to have half your plate be fruits and vegetables. This is actually just basic better eating so far, but it’s a good base for the rest. You’ll get more vitamins and minerals, which help your brain and body function and repair itself. And that means feeling better overall.

I can’t stress enough how much this matters, and how much of a difference it makes in my daily life. We’re told from a pretty early age that it’s good to eat healthy. And then, over time, it becomes just background noise that no one really pays attention to, save for an occasional flash of guilt. That’s how we miss out on one of the easiest ways to feel better every day.

Transitioning to Better Eating

You don’t have to stop eating your favorite foods. People on the autism spectrum often have certain foods as part of our routines. Changing them can be very hard. But starting to choose whole foods options will definitely help your brain and body work better, which translates to you feeling better too. If you love mac’n’cheese, for example, try making it with whole grain noodles. You can also throw in greens, finely chopped broccoli or riced cauliflower, or zucchini slices to lend some fiber and nutrition to the meal.

Pizza can be made from scratch, or you can buy a premade whole grain crust at some grocery stores. I actually like using whole grain English muffins as the base and loading them up with toppings and sauce. They have a nice crunch to them when baked properly. Plus you can always make whatever type you want. If you’re craving like 3 different pizza types, you can just make a couple of each and call it a day. A seasoned salad (with olive or avocado oil as the dressing) and a hand fruit (like an apple or peach) works great to balance out this meal.

Find modifications and substitutions that work for you. Try roasting your vegetables in the oven with a savory spice blend. I have a friend that swears by roast zucchini as a snack. This doesn’t need to be a fast process. I’ve personally only come to my current patterns after years of trying things. It’s okay if it takes that long. Find what works for you, at your own pace.

Dietary and Food Allergies

These are best explored with a knowledgeable doctor’s help. While autism and food don’t necessarily need professional guidance, the subject of allergies gets complicated fast. There are all kinds of sensitivities and allergies. None of mine show up on a typical allergy test, because they’re a different type of allergic reaction. There’s some complicated language around it, and more than one kind. It gets messy fast. I’ll just talk about two major concerns here.

Dairy

I specifically avoid dairy. So cow milk, cheese, ice cream, sour cream, etc. Dairy is an inflammatory substance in the gut, which means it lowkey upsets your body when you eat it. Typically this isn’t a huge issue for most people, especially if you eat it in moderation. But for me, it effectively poisons my brain and clogs up my intestines.

I once went for a week without eating any dairy, then drank a glass of milk. I’d been feeling fine, but within 15 minutes I was in a foul mood. Doing what I did is called an elimination diet, and it’s a typical way to test whether a food is bad for you. You cut the food in question out of your diet entirely for an appropriate period of time (a week or two is usually enough), then try a small portion of it and watch for reactions. If you get no reaction or a positive one, the food is probably okay to add back in.

I tend to consume almond milk products and Follow Your Heart nondairy cheese products. There are a decent number of nondairy products out there at this point. If you find that you also react poorly to dairy after an elimination diet test, it might be worth trying some to see how you like the taste and texture.

Gluten

Gluten is another common dietary issue many autistic people do better without. It’s not a Celiac’s disease thing, necessarily, although that is also a good reason to avoid gluten. It’s just that gluten also lowkey upsets your body the same way milk does. In some cases, the body can end up treating it like an opioid, which can really, really wreck your ability to focus, self-regulate, and be happy.

If you opt to do an elimination test for gluten, keep in mind you’ll need to avoid eating it for at least a month. Gluten sticks around in the system for quite a while.

I personally haven’t gone gluten-free, but I do mainly eat sprouted grain products. There are a lot more options for eating gluten-free than ever before, which is good. When eating gluten-free, keep in mind the first thing I mentioned: eat whole foods. Eating gluten-free won’t help you much if you’re just eating tons of snack food and convenience products.

Vitamin Pills and Supplements

In theory, a person would be to get all their vitamins, minerals, and amino acids from food. A varied, balanced diet made of whole foods helps immensely with this.

However, between food allergies, special diets, and specific biomedical needs, this is not always possible. Autism can come with one or more of these factors, plus a limited tolerance for tastes and textures. That’s where supplements can come in.

On the surface this is pretty simple. Most people are familiar with taking a daily multivitamin, for example. But there’s two problems. One, the quality of the stuff put into most of those daily multivitamins isn’t great, and you don’t necessarily absorb it. And two, autistic biologies can be very unique. A typical multivitamin simply won’t cover it. There is also a major issue with quality. I’ll come back to that in a second.

Tests

When you get into specific nutrition needs, you really need a doctor. Even if it’s just your primary care practitioner. Because the way I found out most of what I needed to address was by blood tests. This gets complicated in a hurry, with all kinds of medical names and such. Some of my tests included a Complete Blood Count (CBC), a Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP), which are measures of whether your blood and metabolism are working as intended. If they’re not, that’s something you A) really want to know, and B) really want to address ASAP.

There were also some specific ones that tested my iron, zinc, vitamin B12, vitamin D, copper, and magnesium levels. The idea with these is finding whether you’re deficient or overdosing with any particular vitamin or mineral. I was deficient in zinc, iron, and vitamin D. So I now take separate supplements of those, to be sure I get enough in my diet. The zinc and vitamin D deficiencies made me more tired and low-energy every day. Addressing those problems helped me feel better. It was a slow improvement, because the nutrients needed to build up in my body. But a very important one.

There were also a couple to test whether my thyroid gland (which regulates your metabolism among other things) was functioning properly. In some people, the thyroid can go into overdrive. Like overclocking a computer, kind of, except never a good idea. Or it can go the other way, and be so sluggish that the person goes through life in a fog. This is also not uncommon in autistic people, and while blood tests aren’t my definition of fun, they’re excellent for figuring this stuff out.

Where and How

Most of my blood tests have been ordered through my primary care practitioner. Because the health care industry is stupid, we needed to give a not-the-real-reason reason to bill insurance for these tests. I think “fatigue” is the one we mostly used. Which, while accurate, was not why we wanted this information.

It’s generally best to get your tests through insurance, because they can get rather pricy. Plus then your doctor is immediately involved to help you understand the results. However, if you don’t have insurance, you aren’t necessarily out of luck. Ulta Lab Tests exists. They’re pretty much a “buy the test, go get it done at one of our locations, receive results online” business, and they’ve done well by me when insurance simply wouldn’t pay for a particular test. You will pay entirely out of pocket, and some of these tests can get expensive in a hurry. Especially specialized genetic testing, which can easily run hundreds of dollars.

Choosing Good Supplements for Autism

Once you’ve identified specific deficiencies, such as vitamin D, you can then start choosing things to address that need. Maybe that’s eating better. But it can also be taking supplements as a backup. For Vitamin D, specifically, it’s not always possible to go outside and get your daily free dose of sunshine.

Do not simply go to the store and pick a random brand of whatever off the shelves. Instead, check with your doctor about good quality brands. Supplements are unregulated by the FDA, meaning false advertising and fillers and additives are the order of the day. Like food, if you put junk in, you’ll get junk out.

I can say my doctor tended to recommend Designs for Health (sold out of her own office and used by herself and her own family), Nordic Naturals, and Master Supplements. If your doctor has no suggestions for good brands, try Labdoor. It’s a free service that ranks the purity, accuracy, and safety of supplements. Here’s the list of Vitamin D options, for example.

My own list of supplements has 11 things on it. Among them, Vitamins C and D, zinc, iron (chelated, so I’ll actually absorb it), magnesium (as magnesium malate), a broad spectrum multivitamin, fish oil, a couple refrigerated probiotics, and a supplement that helps my body purge allergen by-products. I also take a very low dose of melatonin to help me sleep and stay asleep.

TL;DR: Autism and Food

When I eat well, I feel better. My depression and anxiety go way, way down. My brain focuses and organizes better. I’m able to manage events, social situations, and enjoy my favorite things more. “You are what you eat” isn’t literally true, but if you feed your body good food, it makes good fuel and your brain and body work better.

Eating whole foods, and making my plate half fruits and vegetables, is the key to this. You don’t have to stop eating your favorite foods to feel better every day. Modifying them to add vegetables and fruits, or using whole grain options when making them, is a great step to feeling better. Try different ways of making vegetables, too. Oven-roasted and seasoned zucchini or broccoli has become a favorite of several of my friends.

Knowing whether you have dietary allergies or intolerances, like dairy, tree nuts, or gluten, is important to feeding yourself well. Until I cut dairy out of my diet, I suffered much deeper depression and had more significant intestinal problems. Find what works for you.

It’s also good to know if you have specialized dietary needs. Your doctor can help you order blood tests to check whether you’re deficient in anything. Vitamin D is a very common deficiency. It’s not expensive to fix, but don’t simply buy things off store shelves. Supplements are unregulated, meaning no one oversees or tests their production to check for false advertising. Check with your doctor for brand recommendations, or use Labdoor.

What you put in your body determines how good you feel each day. If you put junk food in, you’ll get a junk performance from your brain and body. Feeling better starts with eating better.