No prescription: changes in the nutritional look on autistic children’s eating habits

This article is a reflection on the Master’s dissertation Muito além dos nutrientes: a dinâmica alimentar de crianças autistas (Beyond nutrients: food dynamics of autistic children), which was a proposal to (re) think autistic children’s eating habits. Through experiments with foods, culinary workshops, visits to farmer’s markets, typical Brazilian parties held in June (festas juninas), and picnics, it explores the changes in the nutritional point of view considering photographic fragments and writings by Fernand Deligny, Manoel de Barros, and José Miguel Wisnik as ingredients: openness to the unpredictable, being and doing together, the challenge of presenting the research results to children using comic strips about the experiments, and the suggestion of the food dynamics concept. Cooking and eating together enabled an interaction away from the restricted conception of healthy diet and of food as harmful/pathological. It brought to light the complexity of the food processes providing the unpredictability of life, giving sense to what happened.

Child; Nourishment; Cooking; Autism spectrum disorder