QUEZON City, Philippines (February 27) – Food is a lot of people’s therapy – when we say comfort food, we really mean that. Its releasing dopamine and serotonin in your brain that makes you feel good. Brett Hoebel
It’s a fact that a lot of us enjoy eating! In fact, we may find it so good that we may actually start to turn to food for comfort. When we feel the comfort, then it means we have the sense of physical or psychological ease, we feel the full satisfaction.
Food is one of our basic needs. When we are hungry, we search for food because it is the sure way to satisfy and relieve our hunger. But sometimes, we eat not just because we’re hungry but because of emotional reasons. When we are feeling sad, lonely, angry, and happy, we utilize food as a connection to express our feelings and to satisfy our mind and body. According to Keri Gans RD, spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, “If a person is feeling very stressful, they want to reach for something that they think is going to make them feel better,” says Gans. “We go to those foods that we really enjoy.”
Searching and getting a piece of food from home after feeling stress from work or in school would surely give us the satisfaction, right? That food is what we call our “comfort food”.
According to the Wikipedia, comfort food is food which provides a nostalgic or sentimental feeling to the consumer, and is often characterized by a high carbohydrate level and simple preparation. Some scientific studies reveal that comfort food can provide happiness on a psychological level. Researchers recently studied the effects of comfort food and found that people react to them in different ways. In the article written in thekitchn.com, what makes the food comforting when we’re lonely or stressed aren’t the calories, but the fact that the food we turn to remind us of our connections to family and friends. They added that the more connected you are to the people in your life, the more susceptible you might be to the pull of comfort food.
What one person finds as a comfort food may be different from what others consider as their to-go-to food for comfort.
Why? It is because finding the right comfort food for you is based on your personal experience as well as past memories.
Based from the article of Josh Clark, it has been said that the psychological studies have turned up evidence that the comfort foods we crave are actually artifacts from our pasts. We all have memories of happier times, and by eating foods that remind us of those times, we symbolically consume that past happiness.
Comfort food can also be linked to specific people in our lives: Eating a specific food that a loved one favored can produce happy thoughts by triggering fond memories or associations of that person.
Accept it or not, it’s the kind of food that is not usually the healthy foods. Sometimes, it is the food which is very pleasant to our taste but not as healthy as it is. We turn to ice cream, candies, chocolate, chips and other favorite foods we consider. It works to shift our mood from negative into positive feelings. Thinking about our comfort food, we don’t probably think and consider how much calories it has and its negative effects that will bring to us but we think of how pleasure and satisfaction we get when we taste it.
(written by Jasmin Monte, edited by Jay Paul Carlos, additional research by Vince Alvin Villarin)