Can’t we just enjoy water?

Source of image: Pexels, under Creative Commons Zero Universal (CC0 1.0) license

On Friday afternoon, walking around Medford, Ore., we stopped in at a local eatery. From experience, we knew that if we didn’t speak up immediately, water glasses would be deposited on our table, and those glasses would be clogged with ice. So we quickly told our server, “We’d like water with no ice.”

Unwanted chocolate carries burden of punishment

Public domain image by George Hodan

At Personal Branding Blog, Maria Elena Duron cautions against gifts that hurt the giver’s personal brand, by “shouting” to the recipient that the giver doesn’t know him or her.

Diagnostic ‘labels’: Don’t be so quick to discard

From blogger Gail Forsyth-Vail writing at Beacon Broadside, I learned about an argument by Enrico Gnaulati, for removing children’s diagnostic “labels.” By briefly sharing my background, I hope to explain why this idea makes me uncomfortable.

When I grew up, I was painfully aware that I was not like other people. It was continually made evident by classmates who taunted and rejected me.

From kindergarten onward, I was a school-wide outcast.

​Adults condemned me as a picky eater, because I could not tolerate certain foods. On one occasion, a babysitter tried to force-feed me chocolate cake. My mother actually had to tell this person that I didn’t have to eat cake if I didn’t want it (because a clamped-shut mouth and pulling away in revulsion were not accepted as communication). My mother found me, face smeared with the cake that the sitter tried to force on me.

‘Food Chaining’ by Cheryl Fraker, et al.

As validated as I felt learning that a book like this exists, I felt even more validated when reading Food Chaining by Cheryl Fraker, Mark Fishbein, Sibyl Cox and Laura Walbert.

Eating is easily the most difficult sensory task I face. In childhood, I easily fit the profile of a “problem eater,” as described in this book. I accepted few foods, had strong adverse reactions that included gagging and was reluctant to even touch new foods.

My difficulties didn’t have the benefit of a book like this, however. Instead, adults labeled me “picky,” “spoiled” and “bad” because I could not eat what was served to me.

Even today, it takes time for me to get used to an unfamiliar food, and it requires considerable fortitude to be willing to try new things. If I go to an event when I know that I will get hungry, I have to bring my own snacks because I can’t rely on the selection including foods that I am able to eat.

Validated by fact that ‘Food Chaining’ is a thing

“Validation” would be my choice if I had to name my feelings reading this statement by Loree Primeau, PhD: “Since feeding involves all sensory systems (sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste), eating is the most difficult sensory task that children face.”

Eating continues to be the most difficult sensory task for this woman on the autism spectrum.

To expand my palate, my husband and I take an approach very similar to the “food chaining” discussed by Primeau at Aspergers101.

It takes time for me to get used to an unfamiliar food, and it requires considerable fortitude to be willing to try new things. An experience that is already fraught with challenges on the basis of unfamiliar or unpleasant tastes or textures is further burdened by past experiences and prevalent social attitudes.

‘Fresh Rewards’ stretches Oregon Trail benefits

When the U.S. House and Senate voted to reduce “food stamp” benefits, I contacted the Ashland Food Co-op and Rogue Valley Growers & Crafters Market and thanked them for accepting Oregon Trail, the Oregon version of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card.

‘Behind the Kitchen Door’ is UUA Common Read

The Unitarian Universalist Association’s Common Read selection committee has chosen Behind the Kitchen Door by Saru Jayaraman (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013) as the 2013-14 UUA Common Read. It seemed only natural to pass word along, given my attention to the “common read” when administering a lending library for a lay-led UU community.

“The book reveals how restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America and how poor working conditions — discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens — affect the meals that arrive at our restaurant tables. ... Behind the Kitchen Door invites Unitarian Universalists to intentionally consider their practices in restaurant dining.”