Experiment #02 - Unmasking Your Eating
Greetings Alchemists!
It’s the first week of the month and therefore it is time for an Experiment!
I’ve been experimenting for a few years now with ways to make my life and world more accommodating to my unique needs as a divergent human. Now I want to embark on this experimental journey with you!
For my blog post on the first Wednesday of every month I pitch an experiment to you that you can test out for yourself during the month. Then on the last day of the month I will publish a blog post with the results of this experiment. You know, FOR SCIENCE!
This month we are Unmasking Our Eating! (Keep reading and you’ll find a free downloadable PDF of this experiment so you can try it out for yourself.)
Content Warning: if you have had experiences with eating that might be considered disordered, this month’s experiment might be tender for you. Tread with care, and remember to wear your safety goggles, it is okay if this one is not for you.
Now then, let me set the scene for you…
Origin Story: Javelin’s Experience
I have a lot of strong feelings about fruit. Always have, always will. This includes a deeply held hatred for a variety of specific fruits, and a relatively short list of fruit I truly enjoy (13 when last I counted). With the notable exception of strawberries that I have washed and cut myself, I hate every single berry I have ever had the misfortune of consuming. Ew, gross, get 'em outta here.
Now this did not go over well with the people who surrounded me growing up. My immediate family was confused, my extended family was incredulous, and even random strangers at church potlucks or parents of other children at birthday parties always seemed to have a stake in my berry preferences. Comments came from every direction, ranging from confused and shocked, to condescending, and even downright offended. I was regularly required to defend my food preferences against the onslaught.
‘You can’t hate (insert berry type here)! They are so good!’
‘Have you tried (berry type) recently? Maybe your tastes have changed! Here, eat some right now in front of me.’
‘What do you mean you don’t like (berry type)? How can you even be related to us if you don’t like (berry type)?’
An example of Javelin grimacing
Welp, they wore me down eventually. I still hated berries with everything in me, but the critique I was getting felt worse than forcing a few offending fruits down my throat. I decided I would pick the least repulsive berry out of the lot and pretend to like them to stop people (my extended family in particular) from coming after me. I chose blueberries; bad but manageable enough that I could prevent myself from grimacing when eating them. I’d only chew a little bit and try to swallow them quickly then follow it with a chaser of some food I actually liked. I can’t have been much more than 12 at this point, and I taught myself to endure a food I deeply disliked rather than the social consequences of being different from the rest of my family.
This, my friends, is textbook masking. It is a very concrete example of working to overwrite my internal sensory needs in order to avoid the social repercussions of being noticably neurodivergent.
Unmasking Your Eating Habits
I held onto this particular masking strategy for a few years of family vacations before I couldn’t handle it anymore. Then one year I just stopped. When a relative asked me about why I suddenly didn’t like blueberries again, I looked her directly in the eye and said,
“I was pretending so you would stop getting on my case about it. I am not pretending anymore.”
That’s it. That’s the idea behind this month’s experiment. When it comes to food stuff, let’s test out not pretending anymore. We are experimenting with unmasking our food preferences, even if it is just to yourself.
This could look like no longer forcing yourself to eat a particular food you don’t like.
It could look like no longer accepting offers of a food you do not like to be ‘polite’.
It could look like preparing your food in a non-conventional way instead of doing it the ‘normal way’: ie. go ahead and cut off the crusts on your sandwiches, eat your pasta separate from your sauce, put ketchup on your steak if that’s what you like.
For this month, see what it feels like to meet a food preference you have with a yes instead of a no.
Making It Work For You
Now this experiment is going to require a lot of personalization. There are a lot of different reasons why you might not be able to eat the same things and in the same way that you did when you were a child. There may even be reasons why you can’t eat your currently preferred foods. Maybe you have developed food allergies or sensitivities that mean you can’t eat certain foods any longer. Maybe you have medical needs that require specific habits that I am certainly not qualified to comment on. Please do not participate in this experiment in any way that might cause you harm or jeopardize your health.
When making food changes there can be a temptation to overhaul your current way of doing things in a big way. You know, go big or go home sort of energy. I am not advocating for that right now. At Alchemy we focus on making the small changes, 5% maximum, and learning to sustain those changes over the long term. They build up over time, and can lead to some serious progress, without the crash and burn that often comes with overhauls.
Self-Parenting Still Applies
As much as I might like it to be possible, I cannot survive off gold fish crackers and booster juices anymore. I am in my 30s, and my gastrointestinal system is a sensitive little bastard. If I were to completely defer to my food preferences and abandon all nutritional advice, I would likely end up feeling pretty gross. So I don’t do that. I try to make a meaningful effort to meet my nutritional needs, and at the same time, if there is an adjustment I can make to the way I eat to make me feel more cared for, then I am going to try to do that too.
An Important Caveat
Food can be a really tricky subject for people. And I need to acknowledge that I am not a nutritionist, or a dietitian, or a doctor, or any of the professional designations that might be in a position to tell you what to eat or how to eat it. Do not take this as dietary advice! I am not talking about diet or nutrition here, so much as I am talking about unmasking your own feelings about types of food, and the ways to eat that food.
Okay good talk. Now a recap for the tldr people:
Running the Experiment
Experiment #02 - Unmasking Your Eating (Printable PDF)
Hypothesis: Making the choice to honour my food preferences instead of ignoring or overriding them will contribute to my happiness and lower the burden of masking. (This is not nutritional advice!)
Design: Over the course of the next month, test out eating foods the way you prefer to. If you haven’t done this in a very long time, it might mean revisiting ways you preferred foods as a child. This might mean revisiting an old safe food, or cutting the crusts off your sandwiches, or in my case, eating my pasta sauce separate from my pasta. Find a small change you can make and for this month, lean into it.
Data Gathering: Track the kinds of things you tried out. Notice if and how it changes things for you. Record your observations somewhere.
Here are some reflection questions if you need a prompt:
How do you feel while preparing your food? While you were eating?
How do you feel after?
What kinds of things got in the way?
What were your main takeaways from this experience?
Share Your Findings: Tell me how it went! Comment on this blog post, or send me a DM on insta @alchemydivergencecoaching. You can also email javelin@alchemycoaching.ca with the subject Experiment #02.
Remember the Alchemist’s Code: All information is useful, a yes is as good as a no in response to our hypothesis, because it means we learnt something.