First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

First Bite: How We Learn to Eat
Bee Wilson

Fortnum & Mason Food Book of the Year 2016We are not born knowing what to eat. We all have to learn it as children sitting expectantly at a table. For our diets to change, we need to relearn the food experiences that first shaped us.Everyone starts drinking milk. After that it’s all up for grabs.We are not born knowing what to eat; we each have to figure it out for ourselves. From childhood onwards, we learn how big a portion is and how sweet is too sweet. We learn to love broccoli – or not. But how does this happen? What are the origins of taste? And once we acquire our food habits, can we ever change them for the better?In First Bite, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson draws on the latest research from food psychologists, neuroscientists and nutritionists to reveal how our food habits are shaped by a whole host of factors: family and culture, memory and gender, hunger and love. She looks at the effects siblings can have on eating choices and the social pressures to eat according to sex. Bee introduces us to people who can only eat food of a certain colour; toddlers who will eat nothing but hot dogs; doctors who have found radical new ways to help children eat vegetables. First Bite also looks at how people eat in different parts of the world: we see how grandparents in China overfeed their grandchildren, and how Japan came to adopt such a healthy diet (it wasn’t always so).The way we learn to eat holds the key to why food has gone so disastrously wrong for so many people. But Bee Wilson also shows that both adults and children have immense potential for learning new, healthy eating habits. An exploration of the extraordinary and surprising origins of our taste and eating habits, First Bite explains how we can change our palates to lead healthier, happier lives.

Copyright (#ulink_09bbfaa5-ac8f-54f4-996e-6bc428ade197)

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.4thestate.co.uk (http://www.4thestate.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by 4th Estate

This 4th Estate paperback edition 2016

Copyright © Bee Wilson 2015

Cover image © Mat Taylor

The right of Bee Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

‘An Evening in Terezin’ from I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942–1944 by Hana Volavkova, copyright © 1978, 1993 by Artia, Prague. Compilation © 1993 by Schocken Books. Used by permission of Schocken Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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Source ISBN: 9780007549726

Ebook Edition © December 2015 ISBN: 9780007549719

Version: 2016-11-10

Dedication (#ulink_0ccfddc2-b863-5a47-82c8-35ce06f470e8)

For Emily

Contents

Cover (#ud5058ac7-ffd0-5179-9e8c-08d86ae246a6)

Title Page (#u9433b618-abec-52a6-8d45-275635d38d5b)

Copyright (#u34bc3ce8-d3bc-5ad3-863e-c0cefb66d9e1)

Dedication (#u993e5728-d6d6-56d3-9cb7-bfa594fc3a54)

Preface (#u60c58b8e-1f49-5621-b43a-783261dc6c0d)

Introduction (#u23bcda49-9221-52cb-a5bc-cfa9b50ae250)

CHAPTER 1: Likes and Dislikes (#u5c90b3b2-4026-559b-b9a9-e7a6fde18edc)

BEETROOT (#ucea0fcc1-734f-5710-9331-fb5522b44729)

CHAPTER 2: Memory (#ucdfb8179-e067-51fd-8a5a-189cd8e505de)

MILK (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 3: Children’s Food (#litres_trial_promo)

BIRTHDAY CAKE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 4: Feeding (#litres_trial_promo)

LUNCHBOX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 5: Brothers and Sisters (#litres_trial_promo)

CHOCOLATE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 6: Hunger (#litres_trial_promo)

BREAKFAST CEREAL (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 7: Disorder (#litres_trial_promo)

CRISPS (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER 8: Change (#litres_trial_promo)

CHILLI (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE: This is Not Advice (#litres_trial_promo)

Footnotes (#litres_trial_promo)

Notes (#litres_trial_promo)

Further Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)