First Bite, Bee Wilson
First Bite, Bee Wilson
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First Bite
How We Learn to Eat

Author: Bee Wilson

Narrator: Alison Larkin

Unabridged: 13 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/01/2015

Synopsis

We do not come into the world with an innate sense of taste and nutrition; as omnivores, we have to learn how and what to eat, how sweet is too sweet, and what food will give us the most energy for the coming day. But how does this education happen? What are the origins of taste?In First Bite, the beloved food writer Bee Wilson draws on the latest research from food psychologists, neuroscientists, and nutritionists to reveal that our food habits are shaped by a whole host of factors, including family, culture, memory, gender, hunger, and love. An exploration of the extraordinary and surprising origins of our tastes and eating habits—from people who can only eat foods of a certain color to an amnesiac who can eat meal after meal without getting full—First Bite also shows us how we can change our palates to lead healthier, happier lives.

About Bee Wilson

Bee Wilson is a home cook, journalist, and author of seven food-related books, including The Secret of Cooking. The cofounder of TastEd, she writes for a wide range of publications, including the London Guardian, the London Review of Books, and New York Times. She has been named BBC Radio’s Food Writer of the Year and is a three-time Guild of Food Writers’ Food Journalist of the Year.

About Alison Larkin

Alison Larkin was born in Washington, DC, adopted at six weeks old by British parents, and raised in England and Africa. After graduating from Royal Holloway College, London University, and the Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, she became a playwright and classical actress on the British stage. Then, at twenty-eight, she found her birth mother, who was living in Bald Mountain, Tennessee. The experience turned her into a stand-up comic. She was soon headlining at the Comic Strip in New York and the Comedy Store in Los Angeles, while maintaining her theatrical career. She also spent three years under a studio development contract to star in her own sitcom with ABC, CBS, and Jim Henson Productions. Her unusually wide range of voices can be heard in cartoons and movies, from work by James Cameron and Robert Altman to Pocahontas and The Wonder Pets. The audiobook of The English American, narrated by Alison, won an AudioFile Earphones Award.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship on July 08, 2016

This is an informative book about eating: about how taste preferences are formed, and how we can change them, and why it's so hard to start eating healthily when you're used to the opposite, and about eating disorders and their treatment. One of the things I learned from this book is that I do not......more

Goodreads review by Christina on September 07, 2015

If you read a lot of food/foodie/nutrition books, which I do, the first part of this book will seem very familiar. There's the talk about obesity, processed foods, the disconnect between what we know to be good for us and our eating habits. Many of the same studies put in an appearance--the starving......more

Goodreads review by Emma on May 22, 2019

Just as with the other Bee Wilson book I read previously, I was left feeling a bit disappointed by this one. The first half of the book was incredibly boring, with long chapters that focussed on feeding (your own) children, rather than using childhood as an illustration of how adults once learned to......more

Goodreads review by Bob on November 05, 2015

Advanced reading copy review Due to be published December 1, 2015 I enjoyed Bee Wilson's previous book "Swindled" so was happy to try her latest food-related book "First Bite: How We Learn to Eat". This is not food porn, lusciously describing our first tastes of beloved dishes. Instead it is a scient......more

Goodreads review by Julie on November 12, 2020

Interesting book about learning to eat and how that process continues throughout our lives. If I cared more about scientific studies I'd give this a higher star rating but for me the studies were gone into in exhaustive detail that I wish had been simply summed up for me. The details could easily ha......more

Quotes

“Should be read by every young parent, and is a good resource for adults…There are some very useful ideas within these pages, and none of the usual pseudo scientific bunk that plagues books about diet.” Wall Street Journal

“If any book can effect long-term weight loss, it should be this one, because it feeds the mind rather than denying the body.” Times (London)

“It’s possible for anyone to change, Wilson promises. That means the whole lot of us.” New York Times Book Review

“Her tone is refreshingly loose and friendly; she’s one of the few food scholars I can think of who can effectively quote both Margaret Mead and Homer Simpson. Ultimately, her message is a hopeful, even liberating, one bolstered by examples large and small.” Washington Post

“[A] lucid survey…[with] an impressive range of research in neuroscience and nutrition.” Nature

“Her tone is down-to-earth and research-based at once, gentle, encouraging, no-nonsense….[with] advice and well-supported information.” Boston Globe

“Wilson takes a scholarly approach in this smart and telling journey…Discussing everything from adults with stringent eating patterns to gendered weight misperceptions and changes in cultural norms, Wilson delineates how diets develop and, more importantly, how to make healthy modifications.” Publishers Weekly

“With generous measures of grounded wisdom and solid research findings, the book should attract and possibly inspire broad groups of readers struggling with eating-related issues.” Kirkus Reviews

“Narrator Alison Larkin evokes the listener’s curiosity about this detailed exploration of relearning how to eat…Larkin’s diverse voices and lively accents bring out the international flavor of research that compares global food and eating habits. The plethora of information…[is] effectively tempered by Larkin’s lively tone as well as some of the book’s surprising discoveries.” AudioFile

Awards

  • PopSugar Best Books
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