An on-demand training series from Naureen Hunani and Kieran Rose

This four-part course centers Autistic culture and food identity, offering a critical reframe of how Autistic eating experiences are understood and supported. 

Current narratives around food often pathologize Autistic preferences, needs, and embodiment with labels like “picky” or “rigid.” These deficit-based approaches not only dismiss unique, and at times complex, inner experiences, but also contribute to identity confusion, shame, and disconnection from the body.

Rather than asking Autistic people to change their eating patterns and preferences to meet neuronormative expectations, this course explores what it means to develop an authentic relationship with food that honors Autistic ways of being and affirms that all unique relationships to food are valid and worthy of respect, while challenging harmful stereotypes around Autistic eating experiences.

Part 1: “Who Am I in Relation to Food?” – Unpacking Food Identity and Stigma
This foundational session explores the rich and often overlooked landscape of food identity—for autistic individuals and those who support them. Together, we’ll unpack how food is far more than nutrition or behavior; it is deeply tied to identity, autonomy, culture, and relational safety.

The session will focus on food identity as an extension of Autistic identity—shaped by sensory needs, monotropism, comfort, and resistance to imposed norms. We will explore how cultural, familial, and societal forces shape food preferences and often pathologize autistic eating experiences through narrow, Western lense. Concepts such as epistemic injustice, internalized stigma, and masking at mealtimes will be introduced to help participants reflect on the deeper forces shaping food narratives.

Reflective practices will be incorporated for participants and clinicians to explore their own food experiences and identities. “My Food Timeline” and “Inherited Food Scripts” will support participants in examining their relationships with food and unlearning internalized scripts.

Part 2: Safety, Sensory Worlds, and Food as Communication
This session explores autistic food experiences through the lens of sensory processing, psychological safety, and communication, challenging dominant narratives that frame food preferences and needs as “behavioral problems”. Instead, participants will be invited to see these patterns as adaptive responses rooted in regulation, safety, autonomy, and lived experience.

We begin with a deep dive into sensory processing and how dynamic variables—such as texture, temperature, smell, and environmental stressors—can dramatically alter a person’s experience of food. The discussion will also include how hormonal shifts (puberty, perimenopause, stress, etc.) impact sensory thresholds and food tolerances, often leading to frustration, grief, or anger.

This session also centers food as communication—especially for non-speaking individuals where acceptance, refusal, and preference become powerful expressions of needs, boundaries, or overwhelm. Participants will learn to recognize refusal as an act of agency, not defiance, and examine how power dynamics and adult projection can distort these expressions.

Part 3: Honouring Autistic Relationships with Food, Expression, and Moving Together
This session invites participants to reimagine what a “healthy” relationship with food can look like when defined through neurodivergent needs, lived experience, and personal autonomy—rather than through diet culture, nutritionism, or moralistic frameworks. Together, we’ll explore how food identity is shaped by consent, expression, relational safety, and the ability to move with, not against, a person’s needs.

We’ll explore the concept of food masking—how people may eat in socially acceptable ways to avoid scrutiny, shame, or unwanted attention—and the emotional and sensory costs of this effort, including shutdowns and fatigue.

The session discusses the double empathy problem during mealtimes, especially when Autistic individuals lack the language to describe their food experiences, and caregivers or professionals are not attuned to that language. We’ll emphasize the importance of co-creating affirming communication around food identity.

Part 4: Reconnecting and Reclaiming Food Identity
This session focuses on the ways food identity can be disrupted—through trauma, stigma, medicalization, or behavioral interventions—and how Autistic individuals and those who support them can begin to gently reconnect with food on their own terms. We explore how food can shift from a source of conflict or shame to one of curiosity, safety, and expression.

Participants will reflect on the grief that often accompanies fractured food relationships—whether due to survival-based eating, imposed interventions, or well-meaning guidance that didn’t align with individual needs. We’ll offer ways to rebuild trust through slowing down, attunement, and offering food without expectation.

This session also explores cultural and relational reconnection—how food rituals and traditions can be reclaimed, co-created, or reimagined. We’ll discuss how shared meals can offer connection but may not feel safe for everyone, and how honoring divergence is key to relational healing. Finally, we celebrate food as joy, resistance, and creative expression that affirm Autistic food identities in all their valid and meaningful forms.

This button will open up Naureen's website and you will be able to complete your purchase there. You will then access your training via Naureen's online training portal.

A note from Kieran: For many Autistic people, food is never just food. It’s not that simple. It’s connected to language, agency, sensory experiences, emotions, how we perceive ourselves, and deeply connected to survival in a world that constantly demands we be someone else. So food and our relationship with eating fundamentally becomes a facet of our identity.

My new article Reclaiming Autistic Food Identity: Feeding Shame and Swallowing Stigma dives into what it means to live in a body where every bite can feel like performance, and every food preference is read through someone else’s lens of acceptability.

The article is a companion piece for my training with Naureen. And in the training we’ll be offering a space where these themes are not just explored, but expanded.

As part of the training you will receive a free ebook version of my article (which is good as it's a long read at 13,000 words!).

This is more than a course; it’s a deep, reflective journey into food, identity, and liberation.

 
Together Kieran and Naureen will explore how food intersects with Autistic identity, sensory processing, communication, and safety. We’ll unpack stigma, unlearn pathologizing frameworks, and center joy, resistance, and autonomy in nourishment.

• Understand Autistic food identity as valid, nuanced, and shaped by lived experience

• Move away from deficit-based and behavior-focused interpretations of eating

• Explore the impact of masking, stigma, trauma, and colonial narratives on food relationships

• Recognize sensory health, predictability, and emotional safety as core to nourishment

• Support food autonomy through consent-based, relational approaches

• Learn how food can serve as communication—especially for non-speaking individuals

• Identify and unlearn internalized food scripts rooted in ableism and compliance

• Recognize food as an avenue for cultural reconnection, personal expression, and joy

• Develop strategies for creating safe, non-pressuring food environments

• Reflect on personal, familial, and professional food stories through guided practices

“While many professionals talk about building a 'healthy relationship with food,' supporting food identity takes this work deeper; info the realms of lived experience, culture, power and neurdiversity.” Naureen Hunani, RD

This button will open up Naureen's website and you will be able to complete your purchase there. You will then access your training via Naureen's online training portal.

Who Is This Training For? It isn't just for Registered Dietitians. Any professional working with neurodivergent people with feeding differences and challenges can benefit from taking this course. This offering is also open to caregivers.

Access to Recordings: You have 6 months of access to the recordings and resources (you will receive access to slides and a Workbook)

Contact Hours: Approved for 6 CPEUs by the CDR (USA). For UK students we can provide a certification of completion outlining the hours of study.

Training Platform: This training is accessed via Naureen's training platform (Podia). If you are an existing student of Kieran's (via his online Teachable school) you won't find this training in there, instead you will need to log into Naureen's platform (and will be emailed instructions).

Group pricing: We can offer discounts for group bookings. Please contact Naureen for information; naureen<at>rdsforneurodiversity.com

Financial Difficulty: We are committed to offering busaries for people experiencing financial difficulties. Please email Naureen for information; naureen<at>rdsforneurodiversity.com

Refunds: We don't offer refunds for online training. 

I know not everyone wants, or needs to buy one of my training courses, but I often find people will read one of my free articles and want to say ‘thank you’ (and this is really appreciated as they’re a lot of work to write!) 

Buying me a virtual coffee is a really easy way to say thanks. 

It also supports me to keep being able to create new, free content and also keep my older, free content up-to-date. It also allows me to keep my website ad-free.

My Autism FAQs page is a good place to start if you’re new to my work and want to explore more. Thanks for your support, Kieran.

And, as a thank you for joining, you'll get a 10% off code emailed to you which you can use on Kieran's on-demand autism training

Kieran Rose - The Autistic Advocate; advocating for the Autistic community since 2017 

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