Eat Your Vegetables!

We’ve never had to remind Josh to eat his veggies. This kid loves all kinds of veggies and fruit (so much that we have to lock our fruits and veggies either in the fridge or in my office.) He doesn’t really grasp “limits,” and doesn’t understand what could happen if he sat down and ate an entire bag of apples.😵‍💫 Whenever we go out to eat, his vegetables are usually the first thing he eats.

Josh happily eating an apple at work.🍎

I planted my first garden this year, and only grew things that Josh and I like. Tom eats spinach salad, but that’s the extent of his vegetable consumption, so this garden is just for us. We have radishes, zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and one plant each of yellow, red, orange and green peppers, and about a gazillion brussels sprouts. I grew romaine lettuce and spinach too, but didn’t have the best luck with them. Josh and I love being able to pluck stuff out of the garden to snack on! We also planted apple trees right in our back yard, which may have been a mistake with his fondness of apples. Time will tell!

We’ve tried to send different things to school for Josh’s lunch, but he likes what he likes. He gets 2 uncured hot dogs cut up, a small cucumber, 3 stalks of celery, about 6 baby carrots, 2 slices of each color of pepper, a small handful of grapes, a container with blueberries, blackberries and either strawberries or raspberries, a handful of pecans, some gluten free pretzels, and some pork rinds. Every single day. When I was feeling self-conscious about always sending the exact lunch, his teacher reassured me that he enjoys his lunch and the things in there make him happy.😅

Quite a few of my parent friends of children with Autism acknowledge the difficult eating habits of their kids. We have often marveled at Josh trying something new, like celery with peanut butter, or baklava, or even shrimp! While Josh won’t eat popcorn or cold cereal, overall we’ve been fortunate that Josh has a wide range of foods he enjoys. Especially his veggies!