History Main / FeedByExample

* In ''WesternAnimation/FuturamaBendersBigScore'', Fry gets a job looking after a narwhal named Leelu who isn't eating. He's shown swallowing a fish whole himself before throwing one to her, while his boss comments "Now that's the kind of whale behavioural science they don't teach in whale behavioural science class!"

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/DolphinTale https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eatitso1_4525.jpg]]]]

* In some versions of the Literature/{{Snow White|and the Seven Dwarfs}} fairy tale, the wicked queen has poisoned only half of the apple, and to show Snow White that it is perfectly safe to eat, takes a bite from the side without the poison.

* An animal variation happened in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}''. Doug was watching Roger's cat, Stinky, and at one point tried to feed the cat the diet cat food Roger gave him, but Stinky didn't like it. Doug tried to show Stinky it was good by taking a bit himself, but ended up turning green and racing to the bathroom.

* Mark Briscoe has been seen eating bird food before feeding it to the chicken and other birds on his farm. [[SubvertedTrope However]], he's also been seen eating any excess bird food they don't eat.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
* In one ''Series/LambChopsPlayAlong'' sketch, Shari does this to encourage Baby Lamb Chop to eat her vegetables. Lamb Chop keeps saying "Show me more!" until Shari unwittingly eats all the veggies, then claims that since Shari said [[GreensPrecedeSweets she could have dessert when the plate of veggies was empty]], [[ExactWords she can have dessert now.]] Shari tries to turn the tables by saying that since ''she'' ate the veggies, ''she'' gets the ice cream, but when she lets Lamb Chop have one lick, Lamb Chop [[ExactWords uses that one lick to slurp up the whole scoop.]]

* In ''Film/{{Hellboy}}'', Professor Trevor Bruttenholm tries to coax baby Hellboy to him with a Baby Ruth candy bar. He takes a bite first to show Hellboy that it's food and offers him the rest. Hellboy accepts the bar [[TastesLikeFriendship and by extension the Professor]].

[[folder: Puppet Shows]]

* A variant on the baby-food version crops up in ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/8831866/chapters/23729553 My Golden Sun/Kin-Kur Las’hark T’nash-Veh]]''. After utterly failing to convince his daughter to eat, [[Film/StarTrek Jim]] decides to combine this trope with ReversePsychology...only to realize that the food is absolutely disgusting and that T'Aman was right to refuse it.

* ''Series/FindingBigfoot''. James "Bobo" Fay once cooked up some bacon because he believes that "squatches" like the smell. He said that after the bacon was cooked he would throw pieces of it into the woods for them to eat, and he ate some to show any that were watching him that it was O.K. to eat it.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' has Wilma telling Fred to help Pebbles eat her mush, since she says that "she always eats it when he's around". Naturally, the "taster eats it all" routine ensues.

* It also works with humans. Anyone who's ever been a mother or otherwise around small children knows that the best food is always on ''your'' plate, ''not'' the child's plate. Placing something on your own plate and eating a bite, then offering the child a bite, can convince them to take foods they might otherwise refuse. This is likely an inborn instinct: infants don't know what is and isn't good to eat, but their caregiver likely does, so eating exactly the thing they're eating (not just something that looks like it but is in a different place; the ''exact'' thing) is a good way to ensure your food is safe and tasty.

* This is how Rell persuades the titular kitten to [[ArtisticLicenseAnimalCare drink from a saucer of milk]] in Film/{{Keanu}}.

** In "A Bird in the Hoof", Fluttershy put her mouth into a soup bowl, pretending to sip on it so that [[ThePhoenix Philomena]] would do so as well. [[spoiler:It doesn't work.]]