 Blackstone Audio Presents First Bite, How We Learn to Eat, by B. Wilson This book is read by Allison Larkin. For Emily. Preface. Some find the whole matter of eating easy, while others find it hard. I used to be on the wrong side of this great divide, and somehow to my own surprise and relief leaped over to the other side. This book is my attempt to explore how this switch was possible. You don't have to look far into our world to encounter people of all sizes who relate to food in chaotic ways. The chaos can take many forms—compulsive overeating, under-eating, or extreme pickiness. Some people become so obsessed with the purity of what enters their mouths that they cannot accept invitations to eat with friends. It is a lonely occupation, being someone who wrestles to control their responses to food, given that modern life is steeped with things to eat, both real and imaginary. Snacks assail us at the checkout. Dream feasts tease us from billboards, newspapers, and TV cooking shows. Without ever quite having a full-blown eating disorder, though I came close, I managed to make myself pretty miserable about eating for the best part of a decade, from the middle school years to young adulthood. I probably appeared fine, a bit overweight, nothing more, but food was my main relationship, and although it had some of the thrills of romance, especially when I was in the kitchen with a hunk of sweet brioche dough, it wasn't a stable or sustaining kind of love. We talk in a sickly way of indulgent foods, but when you are trapped in compulsive habits of dependency on them, it does not feel like being pampered. There were days when I gave myself up to consuming guilty treats. Other days were for not eating, which was even worse, as I taunted myself with the foods that I wouldn't permit myself. Thankfully, that phase of life now seems distant. Eating well, by which I don't mean clean eating or raw juice fasts, but regular meals of real, flavoursome food, just isn't that complicated for me any more. Now that I am through on the other side, I can see that, over a period of months, if not years, I learned to master a series of skills that I'd once... Sample complete. Ready to continue?