Food? Pulses the first to get chucked out (4)
I believe the answer is:
eats
'food?' is the definition.
(eats can mean food)
'pulses the first to get chucked out' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
'first' could be 'a' (first letter of the alphabet) and 'a' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'es' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for eats that I've seen before include "Ingests" , "(Consumes) food" , "Swallows food" , "Consumes or dines" , "Victuals" .)