275 Quotes by Bee Wilson

But we haven’t paid anything like enough attention to another consequence of being omnivores, which is that eating is not something we are born instinctively knowing how to do, like breathing. It is something we learn.

After all, as omnivores, we were not born knowing what to eat. We all had to learn it, every one of us, as children sitting expectantly, waiting to be fed.

Our urge to avoid eating something that makes us feel sick is often at the root of disordered eating, as we swerve away from whole categories of foods that we imagine would make us feel uneasy.

But in most places, the new global diet has involved a narrowing down of what people eat. Our world contains around seven thousand edible crops, yet 95 per cent of what we eat comes from just thirty of those crops. As omnivores, humans are designed to eat a varied diet, so there’s something strange and wrong when, as a species, we become so limited in our choice of foods

Until the twentieth century, the threat of famine was a universal aspect of human existence across the world. Harvests failed; populations starved; for anyone but the wealthy, food wasn’t to be relied on. Even in rich countries such as Britain and France, ordinary people lived with the daily spectre of going to sleep hungry and spent as much as half their income on basic staples such as grain and bread.

If we are going to change our diets, we first have to relearn the art of eating, which is a question of psychology as much as nutrition. We have to find a way to want to eat what's good for us.

A recipe is not an exact formula, but it does need a certain structure. When the bones are right, you can dress it in many ways.

I'd rather have a good food - lots and lots of different varieties of good foods - than search for something perfect.

Restaurant critics all struggle with the difficulty of writing about eating without resorting to the word 'delicious' and its synonyms.