We believe you’ve already heard about the term “comfort food”, but what do you really know about it?
By definition, comfort food is food that provides consolation or a feeling of well-being, typically having a high sugar or carbohydrate content and is associated with childhood or home cooking. It is frequently prepared in a simple or traditional style.
Comfort food provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone. These foods remind us of fond memories or occasions, time spent with family and friends, birthdays or holidays.
The term has been traced back to 1966, when the Palm Beach Post used it in a story: “Adults, when under severe emotional stress, turn to what could be called “comfort food” – food associated with the security of childhood, like mother’s poached egg or famous chicken soup.”
While the phrase hasn’t been around for too long, comfort food itself wasn’t just invented with the word. It’s a feeling we’ve all gotten, the meal your grandma used to make or a simple burger that your dad used to bring you to eat together. If your mom used to make you chicken soup when you were sick, you’d associate it with all the good feelings – safety, health, love and care. So, sometimes certain food is comforting just because you grew up eating it.
Consuming energy-dense, high calorie, high fat, salt or sugar foods triggers the reward system in the brain, which gives a distinctive pleasure or temporary sense of emotional elevation and relaxation. When psychological conditions are present, people often use comfort food to treat themselves.
Some say that comfort food needs to be something like pizza, ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, but the truth is it can really be anything. The thing that defines comfort food and the thing that is actually the most important is that it’s comforting to you.
The thing about comfort food is that it doesn’t just fill the stomach, it delights the senses too. Maybe your comfort food is comforting to you because it reminds you of a certain situation that you keep fondly in your memory or maybe it’s comforting just because the smell of it reminds you of your childhood days. We all have different associations and explanations about why some foods are comforting to us.
What’s interesting is that (according to researchers) men are most likely to experience savory cravings, whereas women are more likely to crave sweets such as chocolates and candies.
Sometimes a home-cooked meal is all anyone needs to feel a little better with all the troubles in everyday life and sometimes you just need to treat yourself to a little chocolate. Those cravings are completely normal. This kind of food isn’t a bad thing at all. Treat yourself, but remember – balance is key!
If you feel like you need comfort, we are here for you. Choose something delicious and sweet like our Blueberry Lemon Cheesecake waffle? Or may we suggest you try our Cinnamon Roll Waffle? Check out our menu, we are sure you won’t be disappointed!
