Autism and Emotional Relationship with Food: Strange Reactions and Loss of Hunger

Man theres a million ways autism interacts with food in strange ways. I'm the least severe of my household, my roommate and partner have fairly limited foods they can eat and typically it has to be the exact same foods down to brand and preperation tactics because if the taste or texture is even slightly off they cant eat it, so they have a really weird love hate relationship with foods and rarely eat in public. For them part of these issues involve stomach issues and dietary sensitivities caused by autism too. I have some of those issues too but I'm known as the house garbage disposal comparatively. I, for the most part, love food and everything that goes into it starting from the dirt its grown from to the kitchen its prepared in. I have special interests in soil composition and its effect on living things, animal husbandry and gardening, kitchen appliances and safety rules, and cooking and baking. It genuinely feels like I was made for food. However I also have no introspection from my autism and frequently can't feel when I'm hungry, even when my physical disabilities allow for cooking I often don't notice hunger until I'm having intense hunger pains and am too lightheaded to stand let alone prepare an entire meal. Sometimes it takes days to remember to eat. I'm frequently hangry but it's less because I'm hungry and it's making me angry and more that I can tell Something is Wrong but because I cant tell that it's just hunger I end up tense and upset for long periods of time. It's worse that no introspection effects other areas so sometimes I find other previously undetected issues and solve them but still feel unidentifiablely Wrong so I get increasingly frustrated about not knowing what's wrong as well. I also frequently get distracted and forget even when I do figure it out which can also be frustrating. Especially when you add the fact that many people will poke fun of you for repeatedly forgetting to eat in a short period of time when its incredibly bad for me and something I have to live with. Living with two people who frequently take a bite of something and then cannot eat the rest has meant ive eaten more with them than ever before in my whole life just because instead of waiting for my body cues to tell me I need food, I just eat whenever someone else is trying and can't.

I've always had a difficult relationship with food which was put down to ARFID (avoidance restrictive food intake disorder), an eating commonly associated with neurodivergence. Meltdowns cause by not finding your desired food is also common in autistics because it is an unexpected change and food is often a comfort item which causes distress when it cannot be found.

I don't always notice when I'm hungry and if I do notice I have a 20 minute window where I have to cook and eat it cause after 20 minutes I'm not hungry

I find that due to my hyposensitivity to my body's natural cues, my hunger comes on strong and fast. I may have been hungry for hours, but only feel it when i am starving & my stomach is sore and gurgling. If you struggle with executive functioning, and cooking food is a difficult sensory experience for you, this could explain the tears. Being hungry means our bodies are in a heightened state, and so we are quicker to be distressed. Safe foods are an accommodation, and losing our accommodations is difficult and taxing, even for one meal. Losing the hunger could be explained by being distracted by something. For me, when i hyperfocus on something, i tend to lose my bodily cues. It makes sense that your body and experience is like this. It sounds very difficult and frustrating.