First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

Grown-ups who have been asked to recall what being force-fed was like report emotions such as anger, humiliation, and betrayal.

ketchup became a beloved children’s food partly because it is one of the few elements in a meal a child can add themselves.

We assume that over time, our tastes will gradually blossom of their own accord, but with selective eating, the pattern is for tastes to get ever more closed.

As we take our first bites, our parents are supplying us simultaneously with both nature (genes) and nurture (environment conceived in its broadest sense, including everything from cuisine to family dynamics

Whatever their core condition may be, these children cannot behave at the table because the food is causing them such distress.

The radical thinking behind Baby Led Weaning is that in developmental terms, we actually learn deliberate swallowing only after we have learned to chew. Babies, says Rapley, do not have the ability to move food to the back of their throats until after they have acquired the ability to chew.

As the name suggests, neophobia isn’t just a dislike of how something tastes; it is an active fear of tasting it. In many cases, neophobia can be broken down simply by feeding the food to the child numerous times—often as many as fifteen—until the child realizes she hasn’t suffered any adverse consequences. See, the tomato didn’t kill you! See, it

is girls more than boys who need the most hemoglobin-boosting foods. And boys more than girls are lacking in salad and vegetables. “Girl food” and “boy food” are dangerous nonsense that prevent us from seeing the real problems of feeding boys and girls.

From toddlerhood to adolescence, a parent should be responsible for “what, when, where.” The child is responsible for “how much and whether.” Satter’s idea is that over time, a child offered good family meals with the freedom to eat as much or as little as he or she needs will grow up to become a “competent eater.”

We did not come into the world disliking bitter greens; we were taught to dislike them by our environment. Taste may be identity, but it is not destiny.