October 7, 2025 • 14 mins
Pasta. Chips. Nuggets. Repeat.
If your neurodivergent child lives on a diet of white and yellow foods, you’re not alone. In this episode, Dr Justin Coulson sits down with paediatric dietitian Karina Savage to unpack why fussy eating is so common in autistic and ADHD kids — and what you can actually do to help them expand their diet without battles, bribes or tears.
You’ll learn how to lower pressure, build trust around food, and make progress (even if it’s just one new bite at a time).
KEY POINTS
- Start where your child’s at. Understand the sensory, anxiety, or familiarity issues behind food refusal.
- Safe foods first. Keep trusted foods on the plate, and gently introduce “test foods” nearby (but not touching).
- No pressure, no panic. Play with food, don’t police it — mealtimes should feel safe, not stressful.
- Tiny changes matter. Shift from white to wholemeal, add fibre, and celebrate every small win.
- Watch additives. Processed colours and preservatives can worsen attention and behaviour in neurodivergent kids.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
“Food play in a non-pressured environment builds familiarity and trust — and that’s how progress happens.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Nourish with Karina — Karina Savage’s website and membership for parentsHappy Families — for more tools to help your family thrive
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- List your child’s “safe foods.” Use this as your base for every meal.
- Add one “test food” on the side — no pressure to try it.
- Create calm mealtimes. Avoid forcing or bribing; instead, offer food play and choice.
- Model variety. Let your child see you enjoying colourful, balanced foods.
- Aim for progress, not perfection. A little more colour on the plate is a big win.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is the Happy Families Podcast. I'm doctor Justin Coulson.
Neurodivergent children can be very, very, very fussy when it
comes to eating. They'll have sensory issues, tend to like
foods that are yellow and white, and unfortunately, because there
are already so many challenges that we're dealing with with
neurodivergent kids, poor diet only.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Adds to it.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And yet hearing me say that only adds to the
weight that's on your shoulders and the complexity of life generally,
How do we navigate diet when it comes to kids
with neurodevelopmental challenges?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
What do we do to get appropriate food into.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Them so that they can have the right energy and
also the right ability to focus and concentrate, regulate their
emotions and their behaviors effectively, as well as just having
good physical health. Today on the Happy Families Podcast, we
address how to feed neurodivergent kids when all they want
to do is eat pasta and hot chips. Stay with us,
(01:08):
Hello and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Real Parenting
Solutions every Day. This is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
Regular guest on the pod somebody who knows much more
about food, diet, nutrition and healthy eating than most people
I know. Is Karina Savage. Karina is a pediatric dietitian
and runs the website Nourish with Karina dot com. Mum
of two kids joining me now to talk about neurodivergent
(01:29):
challenges when it comes to diet.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Nice to be with your.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Karina, Thank you, It's great to be here chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Let's talk about the main nutrition issues for neurodivergent kids.
I've got a child who's autistic or ADHD or both,
probably has a bit of anxiety to boot and they
just won't eat anything except for the white stuff and
the yellow stuff, pasta, chips, cheese, chicken nuggets, maybe a
bit of white rice.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
How does that sound about right?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
About right? It certainly stresses parents out. And look, you know,
fuscky eating is common amongst all children, but we find
that with neurodivision children they're even more fussy and there's
more of a likelihood that they will be fussy or
very selective, very selective with their eating. And this can
create a lot of stress and worry for parents because
we're always taught, you know, what our children should be
(02:16):
eating that all the colors of the rainbow and all
the five food groups, but actually making it happen can
be really stressful for parents, and so this white die
is very, very common for children, especially neurodivigent children.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, I've sat in that seat.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Well, I'm still sitting in it from time to time,
and we've been creative and patient and have worked extremely
hard to navigate it. I feel like we've done a
reasonable job. But not every parent has a PhD in
psychology and has written the books about parenting and all
this sort of stuff. So where do you normally start
When a family come sits down and says, we just
can't get this kid to eat.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Anything that would be quote unquote healthy.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
They only want to eat really low value carbs.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's really important to start with trying to address the
underlying root cause of the fussy eating and or the
selective intake the whites eye. And often with neurodivisent children,
sensory issues do play a significant role, whether it's to
do with how food is presented, whether it's the taste
of the food some kids prefer sour or salty, It
(03:21):
could be the texture. Often kids love the crunchy food
and there's a lot of factors that go into sensory issues,
which can be a big issue with children that are neurodivigent,
but also other factors to do with anxiety, food familiarity.
So it's understanding the root cause of why they're fussy
to start with, so that we can then put some
(03:42):
strategies in place to actually get them trying new foods.
But often we need to really lower our expectations as
parents to start where the child's at, because you can't
just expect them to eat, you know, the instagrama will
style lunch of those dinners, because it's just not realistic.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Your master chief does not really cut it when you've
got a neurodivergent child who's a little bit fussy. Let
me ask you a question around I'll just bring it
straight out. Spaghetti bolonnais right, it's pretty much a guaranteed
winner for every child every night of the week. How
many nights a week can my kids eat spaghetti bolonnies
before it starts to impact their health because we've had
(04:19):
to feed them a lot of spaghetti bolonnaise over the years,
and chicken nuggets.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Let's be honest, Well, look.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
If they will eat spaghetti bolinnaise. I'm not fuss if
they're eating it every night of the week if you
can get a balance of those food groups into them,
because that is a meal that often you can hide
a lot of veggies. Yes, I thought, you've got the veggies,
you've got the protein, you've got the carbs, which and
the past is actually slow release. So pasta is one
of the best white foods you can eat, so it's
not a problem. I think the most important thing is
(04:47):
that we are also giving them addition or what I
call test foods, which will help to stretch them over time,
but this could take months and years. But building that
familiarity and trust in other foods whilst we're giving them
there food is really.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
The way to go, all right.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
So I want to talk about strategy in just a
sec but before we do so, just one really important question.
Do you think that as parents we're making too big
of a deal of the impact of a diet that
is not what I would considered ideal? Okay, so it's
not particularly colorful, there's not a whole lot of variety.
Are we short changing our children's health? Are they going
to end up with stunted growth? Is their brain function
(05:24):
going to be attenuated. Is it going to be deleterious
to their overall well being if they're not getting good food.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
It really depends on how restricted they are or how
white they're intake. Is because they see a lot of
children that eat no fruit or vegetables or eat you know,
all carbs, and when you're wiping out whole food groups,
absolutely there is a risk. So they've studied neurodivegent children
and they have found that this group of children are
(05:52):
at risk of key nutrient deficiency such as amigas or zinc,
lled B, or vitamin B or vitamin D or magnesium,
and these nutrients can impact emotional regulation, these nutrients can
impact gut health, and they've linked some of these nutrient
deficiencies to learning difficulties and whatnot. And so in the
extreme cases of fussy eating and food restriction, then yes,
(06:17):
we do need to be worried and the impact on
their emotional regulation is real and their neurological function. But
if it's just a case of you know, they're just
not eating all the colors of the fruits and the vegetables,
and it's not much as much of a concern.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I'm really glad that you clarified that.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I found that with my kids, we really do see
their capacity for physical activity, their emotion regulation, and even
their willingness to their ability to sit down, focus and
concentrate and get stuff done is really affected by their diet.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
It seems to really have an impact.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
So after the break, let's have a chat about what
we can do in terms of strategies to start improving
our kids' nutrition so that they can and flourish, since obviously.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
This is a thing.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Talking with Corina Savage. Karina is a pediatric dietitian, runs
the website Nourish with Karina dot com and has become
one of my favorite go to people for all things
diet related when it comes to helping our kids to
be healthy. Karina, if I'm dealing with a neurodivergent child
sensory issues are really fussy and picky around what foods
(07:31):
go into his or her mouth and just loves that
white rice and cheese and a bit of pasta, what
are the strategies that you would typically work on with
parents to improve their nutrition. For example, I heard you
say before with spaghetti bon as that you can also
put some I think you use the word test foods
alongside it.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, absolutely, So my strategy there would be to list
the safe foods that your child has, and that is
the food that appeal to them for whatever reason, whether
it's they're familiar with the food, whether it depends on
their sensory preferences. So often children love things that are
crunchy or love things that are salty, So we have
(08:12):
to really be into what foods are in their sort
of safe category based on their sensory preferences or what
they are familiar with, and then we try to put
some little test foods on the side, but often they
can't be touching. Sometimes they can't even be on the
same plate. I'm not sure if you've done that with
your daughter, but trying to keep them safe and separate
(08:32):
is important so that children don't have a heightened sense
of anxiety in meal times, because as soon as we
elevate their anxiety, we put them into fight off white
mode and then they can't even comprehense frying with them
to try a new food, and they're often the whole
meal is sabotage. So we really need to be mindful
of how we approach meal times with children, especially that
(08:54):
are super fussy.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, it's funny how if the food just looks wrong,
or if if it's food that they like but you've
added one thing to it it it can set everything off.
Nata Yeah yeah, yeah. Let me run a couple of
things by you that we've also found really effective with
our kids. What we've often done is we'll just put
a platter out and we'll say, while you're playing this
(09:18):
game or while you're reading this book, while you're doing
that thing, we'd like you to eat what's on the plate.
And we usually give them a whole lot of foods.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
You use the term safe.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I kind of feel like we're overpathologizing food when we
keep on talking about this idea that I get the
idea behind it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I'm not saying it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
I'd rather just talk about foods that kids really enjoy eating,
and then foods that they're not quite so familiar with,
and we just sort of say, there's a couple of
things on here that you haven't had before. We'd like
you to try it while you're having all the other
foods that you do like. So, like the other week,
we put some radish, some sliced radish on the plate,
with some other foods that we know that our daughter eats,
(09:56):
and she ate it, and at the end of it
she said, yeah, I didn't really like it, but it
wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And we're kind of.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Going, yeah, all right, this is a win. But generally speaking,
we'll just put the fruit and veggies on. We actually
make it really colorful. We let her play with it
and design it however she wants. Sometimes we do faces
and things. And we found over the last year or so,
as we've really emphasized that she's got agency over what
she's eating. The plates there she gets to choose at
(10:23):
what speed she eats it, in what environment she eats it,
we've just found that she's happy to eat pretty much
anything like well, actually not anything. No, No, that's going
too far. There's still a lot that she won't eed.
There's a lot that was overstating it, but certainly she's
become a lot more open to eating foods and it.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Just sort of has to fit with her.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I guess autonomy is the keyword here, Like, she still
won't sit down and eat my prawn pesto pasta that
is just my specialty. A little bit of garlic and
chili on the prawns and some zucchini threaded through the pasta.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
She won't need that. Yeah, I know, that's what I'm
thinking too. She won't touch it, she won't need anything avocado.
There's a million billion things that she won't.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Eat, but food rules.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, but we are finding that when we set it
out like that, we can get more colors on the plate,
more colors into her body, and she's taking her time
eating it while she's doing another activity that she's sort
of focused on, and it gets us there. It's not ideal,
it's not the way we want it to be, but
it gets us there and she's eating. What if I
said that's right?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
What have I said that's wrong?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
How would you change it? And what else would you suggest?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah? No, you're doing all the right things. And this
is why it's working because food play in a non
pressurized environment build familiarity and trust and it helps with autonomy.
They become empowered. They get to choose same thing you
could do with sorting nuts out, you know, little opportunities
peeling peas, peeling peanuts where they're not forced to eat
(11:50):
or not even encouraged to eat. It's just you know
here it is have a go. I mean, it's great
if you will eat, if you say, you know a
pick out its as you're playing. But there's I think
the important thing to note here is there's no pressure,
and there's a lot of exposure of a variety of foods,
foods that they're both familiar with and havey to eat,
and foods that are slightly out of their comfort zone
(12:12):
but are there for them to give it a go.
And those opportunities over the days, in the weeks and
the months all ad up, especially if they're also seeing
you eat these foods, you know, at certain times as well.
So that's really powerful that you're also eating these foods
because when she sees you eating and enjoying these foods,
that also helps to build that familiarity and.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Trust in that food.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
All Right, So, Karina, we've covered off fairbit in a
very short period of time. Let's pull it down to
three key rules. What are the three key rules or
strategies or tactics or approaches that we could take to
help our neurodivergent kids, well, just picky eaters generally, to
get that variety.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
And that color and that flavor into their mouths.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
So understand where the challenges currently are and work from there.
Number two, try to offer food play in a non
pressurized environment and encourage small changes done consistently over time. So,
for example, moving from white to home will if we
can increase fiber and reduce fast sugars, small little changes
(13:19):
unconsistently will make it a big difference. The third thing
I would say would be to watch the packet food
because there's a whole lot of evidence around food colors
especially and some preservatives and the impact on neurodivegent children
and their attention and their behavior. So processed foods and
we haven't even talked about that, but that's another one
(13:39):
that we really need to be mindful of.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, they just love that stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Will wrap it up there and maybe we can do
that another time. Credit Savage is a pediatric dietitian. Nourished
with Karina dot com is the website. You've got a
membership there as well, am I writing record?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yes I do.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
You can find out a lot of that information on
my website.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Absolutely, Okay, Nourish with Koreina dot com. We'll link to
that in the show notes. Koreinna I always enjoy our
chats and always feel like I'm picking up useful hints
and tips. So hopefully this has been really valuable for
so many parents.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Thanks for the chat, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides additional research and admin support.
If you'd like more information to make your family happier,
visit us at happy families dot com dot a u
This is the Happy Families Podcast. I'm doctor Justin Coulson.
Neurodivergent children can be very, very, very fussy when it
comes to eating. They'll have sensory issues, tend to like
foods that are yellow and white, and unfortunately, because there
are already so many challenges that we're dealing with with
neurodivergent kids, poor diet only.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Adds to it.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And yet hearing me say that only adds to the
weight that's on your shoulders and the complexity of life generally,
How do we navigate diet when it comes to kids
with neurodevelopmental challenges?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
What do we do to get appropriate food into.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Them so that they can have the right energy and
also the right ability to focus and concentrate, regulate their
emotions and their behaviors effectively, as well as just having
good physical health. Today on the Happy Families Podcast, we
address how to feed neurodivergent kids when all they want
to do is eat pasta and hot chips. Stay with us,
(01:08):
Hello and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Real Parenting
Solutions every Day. This is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
Regular guest on the pod somebody who knows much more
about food, diet, nutrition and healthy eating than most people
I know. Is Karina Savage. Karina is a pediatric dietitian
and runs the website Nourish with Karina dot com. Mum
of two kids joining me now to talk about neurodivergent
(01:29):
challenges when it comes to diet.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Nice to be with your.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Karina, Thank you, It's great to be here chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Let's talk about the main nutrition issues for neurodivergent kids.
I've got a child who's autistic or ADHD or both,
probably has a bit of anxiety to boot and they
just won't eat anything except for the white stuff and
the yellow stuff, pasta, chips, cheese, chicken nuggets, maybe a
bit of white rice.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
How does that sound about right?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
About right? It certainly stresses parents out. And look, you know,
fuscky eating is common amongst all children, but we find
that with neurodivision children they're even more fussy and there's
more of a likelihood that they will be fussy or
very selective, very selective with their eating. And this can
create a lot of stress and worry for parents because
we're always taught, you know, what our children should be
(02:16):
eating that all the colors of the rainbow and all
the five food groups, but actually making it happen can
be really stressful for parents, and so this white die
is very, very common for children, especially neurodivigent children.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, I've sat in that seat.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Well, I'm still sitting in it from time to time,
and we've been creative and patient and have worked extremely
hard to navigate it. I feel like we've done a
reasonable job. But not every parent has a PhD in
psychology and has written the books about parenting and all
this sort of stuff. So where do you normally start
When a family come sits down and says, we just
can't get this kid to eat.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Anything that would be quote unquote healthy.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
They only want to eat really low value carbs.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's really important to start with trying to address the
underlying root cause of the fussy eating and or the
selective intake the whites eye. And often with neurodivisent children,
sensory issues do play a significant role, whether it's to
do with how food is presented, whether it's the taste
of the food some kids prefer sour or salty, It
(03:21):
could be the texture. Often kids love the crunchy food
and there's a lot of factors that go into sensory issues,
which can be a big issue with children that are neurodivigent,
but also other factors to do with anxiety, food familiarity.
So it's understanding the root cause of why they're fussy
to start with, so that we can then put some
(03:42):
strategies in place to actually get them trying new foods.
But often we need to really lower our expectations as
parents to start where the child's at, because you can't
just expect them to eat, you know, the instagrama will
style lunch of those dinners, because it's just not realistic.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Your master chief does not really cut it when you've
got a neurodivergent child who's a little bit fussy. Let
me ask you a question around I'll just bring it
straight out. Spaghetti bolonnais right, it's pretty much a guaranteed
winner for every child every night of the week. How
many nights a week can my kids eat spaghetti bolonnies
before it starts to impact their health because we've had
(04:19):
to feed them a lot of spaghetti bolonnaise over the years,
and chicken nuggets.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Let's be honest, Well, look.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
If they will eat spaghetti bolinnaise. I'm not fuss if
they're eating it every night of the week if you
can get a balance of those food groups into them,
because that is a meal that often you can hide
a lot of veggies. Yes, I thought, you've got the veggies,
you've got the protein, you've got the carbs, which and
the past is actually slow release. So pasta is one
of the best white foods you can eat, so it's
not a problem. I think the most important thing is
(04:47):
that we are also giving them addition or what I
call test foods, which will help to stretch them over time,
but this could take months and years. But building that
familiarity and trust in other foods whilst we're giving them
there food is really.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
The way to go, all right.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
So I want to talk about strategy in just a
sec but before we do so, just one really important question.
Do you think that as parents we're making too big
of a deal of the impact of a diet that
is not what I would considered ideal? Okay, so it's
not particularly colorful, there's not a whole lot of variety.
Are we short changing our children's health? Are they going
to end up with stunted growth? Is their brain function
(05:24):
going to be attenuated. Is it going to be deleterious
to their overall well being if they're not getting good food.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
It really depends on how restricted they are or how
white they're intake. Is because they see a lot of
children that eat no fruit or vegetables or eat you know,
all carbs, and when you're wiping out whole food groups,
absolutely there is a risk. So they've studied neurodivegent children
and they have found that this group of children are
(05:52):
at risk of key nutrient deficiency such as amigas or zinc,
lled B, or vitamin B or vitamin D or magnesium,
and these nutrients can impact emotional regulation, these nutrients can
impact gut health, and they've linked some of these nutrient
deficiencies to learning difficulties and whatnot. And so in the
extreme cases of fussy eating and food restriction, then yes,
(06:17):
we do need to be worried and the impact on
their emotional regulation is real and their neurological function. But
if it's just a case of you know, they're just
not eating all the colors of the fruits and the vegetables,
and it's not much as much of a concern.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I'm really glad that you clarified that.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I found that with my kids, we really do see
their capacity for physical activity, their emotion regulation, and even
their willingness to their ability to sit down, focus and
concentrate and get stuff done is really affected by their diet.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
It seems to really have an impact.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
So after the break, let's have a chat about what
we can do in terms of strategies to start improving
our kids' nutrition so that they can and flourish, since obviously.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
This is a thing.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Talking with Corina Savage. Karina is a pediatric dietitian, runs
the website Nourish with Karina dot com and has become
one of my favorite go to people for all things
diet related when it comes to helping our kids to
be healthy. Karina, if I'm dealing with a neurodivergent child
sensory issues are really fussy and picky around what foods
(07:31):
go into his or her mouth and just loves that
white rice and cheese and a bit of pasta, what
are the strategies that you would typically work on with
parents to improve their nutrition. For example, I heard you
say before with spaghetti bon as that you can also
put some I think you use the word test foods
alongside it.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, absolutely, So my strategy there would be to list
the safe foods that your child has, and that is
the food that appeal to them for whatever reason, whether
it's they're familiar with the food, whether it depends on
their sensory preferences. So often children love things that are
crunchy or love things that are salty, So we have
(08:12):
to really be into what foods are in their sort
of safe category based on their sensory preferences or what
they are familiar with, and then we try to put
some little test foods on the side, but often they
can't be touching. Sometimes they can't even be on the
same plate. I'm not sure if you've done that with
your daughter, but trying to keep them safe and separate
(08:32):
is important so that children don't have a heightened sense
of anxiety in meal times, because as soon as we
elevate their anxiety, we put them into fight off white
mode and then they can't even comprehense frying with them
to try a new food, and they're often the whole
meal is sabotage. So we really need to be mindful
of how we approach meal times with children, especially that
(08:54):
are super fussy.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, it's funny how if the food just looks wrong,
or if if it's food that they like but you've
added one thing to it it it can set everything off.
Nata Yeah yeah, yeah. Let me run a couple of
things by you that we've also found really effective with
our kids. What we've often done is we'll just put
a platter out and we'll say, while you're playing this
(09:18):
game or while you're reading this book, while you're doing
that thing, we'd like you to eat what's on the plate.
And we usually give them a whole lot of foods.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
You use the term safe.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I kind of feel like we're overpathologizing food when we
keep on talking about this idea that I get the
idea behind it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
I'm not saying it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
I'd rather just talk about foods that kids really enjoy eating,
and then foods that they're not quite so familiar with,
and we just sort of say, there's a couple of
things on here that you haven't had before. We'd like
you to try it while you're having all the other
foods that you do like. So, like the other week,
we put some radish, some sliced radish on the plate,
with some other foods that we know that our daughter eats,
(09:56):
and she ate it, and at the end of it
she said, yeah, I didn't really like it, but it
wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And we're kind of.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Going, yeah, all right, this is a win. But generally speaking,
we'll just put the fruit and veggies on. We actually
make it really colorful. We let her play with it
and design it however she wants. Sometimes we do faces
and things. And we found over the last year or so,
as we've really emphasized that she's got agency over what
she's eating. The plates there she gets to choose at
(10:23):
what speed she eats it, in what environment she eats it,
we've just found that she's happy to eat pretty much
anything like well, actually not anything. No, No, that's going
too far. There's still a lot that she won't eed.
There's a lot that was overstating it, but certainly she's
become a lot more open to eating foods and it.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Just sort of has to fit with her.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
I guess autonomy is the keyword here, Like, she still
won't sit down and eat my prawn pesto pasta that
is just my specialty. A little bit of garlic and
chili on the prawns and some zucchini threaded through the pasta.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
She won't need that. Yeah, I know, that's what I'm
thinking too. She won't touch it, she won't need anything avocado.
There's a million billion things that she won't.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Eat, but food rules.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, but we are finding that when we set it
out like that, we can get more colors on the plate,
more colors into her body, and she's taking her time
eating it while she's doing another activity that she's sort
of focused on, and it gets us there. It's not ideal,
it's not the way we want it to be, but
it gets us there and she's eating. What if I
said that's right?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
What have I said that's wrong?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
How would you change it? And what else would you suggest?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah? No, you're doing all the right things. And this
is why it's working because food play in a non
pressurized environment build familiarity and trust and it helps with autonomy.
They become empowered. They get to choose same thing you
could do with sorting nuts out, you know, little opportunities
peeling peas, peeling peanuts where they're not forced to eat
(11:50):
or not even encouraged to eat. It's just you know
here it is have a go. I mean, it's great
if you will eat, if you say, you know a
pick out its as you're playing. But there's I think
the important thing to note here is there's no pressure,
and there's a lot of exposure of a variety of foods,
foods that they're both familiar with and havey to eat,
and foods that are slightly out of their comfort zone
(12:12):
but are there for them to give it a go.
And those opportunities over the days, in the weeks and
the months all ad up, especially if they're also seeing
you eat these foods, you know, at certain times as well.
So that's really powerful that you're also eating these foods
because when she sees you eating and enjoying these foods,
that also helps to build that familiarity and.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Trust in that food.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
All Right, So, Karina, we've covered off fairbit in a
very short period of time. Let's pull it down to
three key rules. What are the three key rules or
strategies or tactics or approaches that we could take to
help our neurodivergent kids, well, just picky eaters generally, to
get that variety.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
And that color and that flavor into their mouths.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
So understand where the challenges currently are and work from there.
Number two, try to offer food play in a non
pressurized environment and encourage small changes done consistently over time. So,
for example, moving from white to home will if we
can increase fiber and reduce fast sugars, small little changes
(13:19):
unconsistently will make it a big difference. The third thing
I would say would be to watch the packet food
because there's a whole lot of evidence around food colors
especially and some preservatives and the impact on neurodivegent children
and their attention and their behavior. So processed foods and
we haven't even talked about that, but that's another one
(13:39):
that we really need to be mindful of.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, they just love that stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Will wrap it up there and maybe we can do
that another time. Credit Savage is a pediatric dietitian. Nourished
with Karina dot com is the website. You've got a
membership there as well, am I writing record?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yes I do.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
You can find out a lot of that information on
my website.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Absolutely, Okay, Nourish with Koreina dot com. We'll link to
that in the show notes. Koreinna I always enjoy our
chats and always feel like I'm picking up useful hints
and tips. So hopefully this has been really valuable for
so many parents.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Thanks for the chat, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides additional research and admin support.
If you'd like more information to make your family happier,
visit us at happy families dot com dot a u
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