Narrator: In the 1920s, a Chicago pediatrician named Dr. Clara Davis conducted a radical experiment. She took a group of newly weaned infants, some of them orphans, and set them up in a special ward. For years, these babies were offered a wide array of 34 simple, whole foods at every meal—things like beets, lamb, sea salt, and oatmeal. The nurses were given strict instructions: present the food without any comment, encouragement, or disapproval. The children were free to eat whatever they wanted, as much as they wanted, even if that meant a bizarre meal of only beets or a "food jag" where they ate nothing but eggs for days. The results were astonishing. Not a single child suffered from malnutrition; in fact, they all thrived. Children who came in with rickets cured themselves by choosing foods rich in vitamin D, like cod liver oil. This experiment seemed to prove a comforting idea: that humans have an innate "wisdom of the body," an instinct for choosing the right foods. But is that the whole story? In her book, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat, author and food writer Bee Wilson argues that this interpretation misses the most crucial detail of all, and in doing so, reveals the fundamental truth about our relationship with food.

Narrator: The central argument of First Bite is that our food preferences are not hardwired; they are learned. The popular takeaway from Clara Davis's experiment—that children instinctively know what to eat—is a dangerous misreading. Wilson points out that the success of the experiment hinged entirely on its setup. The children thrived not because of some mystical internal compass, but because every single one of the 34 options available to them was healthy. There were no sugary cereals, no processed snacks, no artificially flavored drinks. When the food environment is perfectly curated, a child cannot make a bad choice.

This directly challenges the "wisdom of the body" theory. In the real world, a child given free rein in a supermarket will not create a balanced diet; they will gravitate towards the brightly packaged, high-sugar, high-salt items that have been engineered to be hyper-palatable. Wilson uses the story of the "cornflake boy" from her childhood to illustrate how stubborn these learned preferences can be. This boy would eat nothing but cornflakes and milk for every single meal, a habit that baffled and worried his mother but was an immovable part of his identity. His preference wasn't innate; it was a learned pattern that had become deeply entrenched. Wilson argues that our tastes are shaped far more by our environment, our family, our culture, and our repeated exposures than by our genes. While genetics might predispose someone to be more sensitive to bitterness, for example, it is the environment that determines whether that sensitivity translates into a lifelong aversion to vegetables.

Narrator: If taste is learned, the most critical lessons happen in childhood. Wilson explains that children go through a natural phase of "neophobia," or fear of new foods, typically between the ages of two and six. This is an evolutionary defense mechanism to prevent toddlers from accidentally poisoning themselves. However, in our modern world, it often results in children rejecting perfectly healthy foods.

The key to overcoming this is repeated, low-pressure exposure. Wilson highlights research showing it can take up to fifteen "tastes" for a child to accept a new food. This process is heavily influenced by social cues. One story tells of a mother struggling to get her daughter to eat green beans. After many failed attempts, she had the girl’s favorite doll "eat" the green beans at the table, making enthusiastic noises. Soon after, the daughter asked to try the doll's food and discovered she liked it. This demonstrates the power of modeling.

Conversely, common parental strategies can backfire. Forcing a child to eat or rewarding them with dessert for finishing their vegetables—a tactic Wilson calls a "dangerous game"—actually reinforces the idea that vegetables are a chore to be endured for a prize. It teaches the child to value the sweet reward more and dislike the vegetable even more. The most effective learning happens in a positive, supportive environment where new foods are explored without pressure.

Narrator: For most of human history, there was no such thing as "children's food." Children simply ate what the adults ate, a concept Wilson calls "family food." This changed dramatically in the 20th century with the rise of two new categories: "nursery food" and, later, "kid food."

"Nursery food" emerged from Victorian anxieties about health and digestion. It was bland, mushy, and boiled, prioritizing safety over pleasure. Think of the dreaded rice pudding that haunted British schoolchildren for generations. The underlying message was that food for children should be wholesome, but not necessarily enjoyable.

This was eventually replaced by the modern phenomenon of "kid food"—a commercial category of brightly colored, sugary, and highly processed items like chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese from a box, and character-branded snacks. Wilson presents data showing that in 2001, french fries appeared on American chain restaurant kids' menus more than twice as often as any other item. This new category teaches children that food should be fun and sweet, creating a palate that prefers processed flavors and setting up a lifetime of struggle against cravings for unhealthy options. It creates a false dichotomy where "kid food" is for pleasure and "adult food" is for health, a division that can be difficult to unlearn.

Narrator: First Bite makes the crucial point that clinical eating disorders are not a separate, isolated phenomenon. Instead, they are the extreme end of a spectrum of disordered eating habits that are incredibly common in our culture. The picky eater, the chronic dieter, and the person with anorexia are all grappling with the same fundamental challenges of learning to eat.

Wilson shares the story of Diane, a nearly fifty-year-old woman who identified as a "picky eater." Her diet consisted almost exclusively of cheese, processed potatoes, bread, and cereal. She wasn't trying to control her weight; she simply couldn't bear to eat other foods, feeling a sense of guilt and failure that had haunted her since childhood. Her case shows how distorted eating can become without ever receiving a clinical diagnosis.

The book then explores the treatment of severe disorders like anorexia, highlighting the success of Family-Based Treatment (FBT). This method works on the principle that food is medicine. Parents are empowered to take control of their child's eating, systematically "refeeding" them to restore physical and cognitive health. The goal is to help the patient relearn how to eat in a structured, supportive environment, proving that even the most destructive food habits can be unlearned and replaced with ones that sustain and delight.

Narrator: The most hopeful message in First Bite is that because eating is a learned behavior, it can be relearned at any age. Our tastes are not fixed. To illustrate this on a grand scale, Wilson tells the story of Japan's dietary transformation. For centuries, the Japanese diet was considered plain and insufficient. But through a series of national efforts—driven by military needs, public health campaigns, and a new cultural openness after World War II—the entire country changed how it ate. They embraced new ingredients and foreign recipes, adapting them to their own culinary traditions, and in doing so, created one of the healthiest and most admired food cultures in the world.

This capacity for change also exists at the individual level. It requires moving away from a mindset of deprivation and coercion. Instead of forcing ourselves to eat things we hate, the goal should be to change what we actually like. This can be done through gradual, positive exposure. Studies show that by consistently reducing salt or sugar intake, our brains adapt, and soon the old, hyper-sweet or salty foods start to taste unpleasant. The key is to make healthy food and pleasurable food one and the same. As Wilson concludes, taste may be part of our identity, but it is not our destiny.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from First Bite is that our relationship with food is not predetermined. We are not born picky eaters or destined to crave sugar. Eating is a skill, one that is learned through a complex interplay of memory, culture, family, and exposure. Our modern food environment has taught many of us this skill poorly, but the very fact that it is learned means it can be relearned.

The book challenges us to stop seeing our tastes as fixed and to start seeing them as malleable. It asks us to consider that the food you think you hate might just be a food you haven't learned to love yet. What if you could teach yourself to enjoy the foods you know are good for you, not as a chore, but as a genuine pleasure? That is the possibility First Bite leaves us with.