Picky Eaters in Survival Situations

Last month, we received a request for an article about prepping long-term food for people with Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). While I don't have any experience with ARFID, I'm neurodivergent and have neurodivergent children, so that means I have some experience with pickier than normal eaters. This article will cover a few options for dealing with the possibility of going through a survival situation or disaster response with a child who is a picky eater and may be neurodivergent. These recommendations will change based on the age of the person.

Children Under Five 

At this age, children really do have a less developed digestive tract and weaker stomach acid, so I recommend avoiding raw vegetables (they're great for fiber in adults, but they can really irritate a young child’s digestive tract). Preserved fruits are generally an easy source of calories and vitamins, and fatty tinned meats like “Vienna Sausages” are enough to meet their protein requirements. It isn’t a healthy diet in the long term, but in a survival situation the goal is to last long enough to get back to normal. Sweet snacks like chewy granola bars are generally a good option here as well, and the “mac & cheese” from a box is often well tolerated.

Tips for this age range: Add nutrition to foods that are easily digested, such as a half cup of dehydrated milk to mashed potatoes to add protein and calcium, or a scoop of unflavored collagen protein powder to the boxed mac & cheese. This doesn’t change the taste much, and helps round out the nutrition intake. 

Children Five to Eight

At this age, texture is more of an issue than flavor, and this is “green vegetables” more than anything else. Chop the vegetables finely and mix them in with a starch (potatoes or rice in my house, but a pasta based casserole works too). Your goal is to get them to have enough calories and nutrients to survive.

Tips for young children: Have plenty of a sauce on hand that they like. At this age, a lot of children really use food as a delivery method for ketchup. 

Children Nine to Twelve 

This age group has food aversions based mainly on taste or texture. If all Billy or Suzy will eat from what you’ve cooked is mashed potatoes or white rice, that's enough to get them through a few weeks without adverse effects. The impact of malnutrition from a month of potatoes (which you can fortify with powdered milk or protein) is negligible, and you should have multi-vitamins in your preps anyways. Children at this age can be willful, so letting them skip a meal until they are hungry enough to eat is just fine.

Tips for pre-teens: Involve them in food prep with appropriate tasks such as peeling vegetables, opening cans or jars, building a cooking fire. Involving them in the prep makes it easier to involve them in eating together.

Teenagers

Let them choose whether or not they eat what's available.  Acknowledge their sovereignty over their body, but limited choices are limited choices, so let them choose. When they're hungry enough to eat, whatever's available is their choice. 

Note: If it does get to the point where they are literally dying (which takes weeks if they were nominally healthy before the disaster), then the survival situation has gone on long enough where force feeding options are on the table. How to force feed a person of normal intelligence who is choosing to starve themselves to death is a very low probability, so I won't go into details here.

Tips for teenagers, even neuro-divergent teens: 

• They're much more likely to eat food they prepared (or helped prepare) from start to finish. It’s the same food you make, but because they had a hand in making it they are more willing to try it.
• Herbs and spices are cheap. Letting your teens have access to them to change the flavor profile of food is generally a good thing.

In Summary

• Involve your picky eaters in food preparation at every age level. This will build them into competent people who know how to cook when they leave home and start their adult life. 
• Have dietary supplements, multivitamins and unflavored protein powder on hand for rounding out nutrition requirements.
• It's okay to let your picky eater skip a meal or two, as hunger is the best spice.