Why do we seek comfort in food? Because it is delicious, of course.
But there are also scientific explanations to the question of why sometimes food fills us, not only the stomach, but also the spirit .
In some languages this phenomenon has even been given a name. In English they speak of “comfort food”, which could be translated into Spanish as “comfort food”.
It is something that can change depending on cultural, family or generational factors.
But what exactly are we talking about when we talk about comfort food?
Imagine a small pile of freshly cooked rice, put some chicken spiced with ginger, garlic and chili sauce, and you’ve reached the place where food writer Jenny Linford feels happiest.
This is a chicken and rice dish from Hainan, an island in southern China. For Linford, who lived in Singapore as a child, it brings back memories of large family gatherings where good food abounded.
“We talk about a kind of well-being based on food,” says Lindford, who has written several books about food, including one in which he reviews the favorite cookbooks of 73 famous chefs from around the world.
The Oxford English dictionary defines the term “comfort food” as “food that provides comfort or a feeling of well-being, usually high in carbohydrates and sugar, and associated with childhood or home cooking “.
But Linford believes that the concept of comfort food is not universal.
” I lived in Italy as a child. My Italian friends have just told me: ‘Look, food is always comfort and pleasure, and it’s always joyful,’ ”she says.
For her, the idea of comfort food in It is actually something “with many nuances.”
Fats, carbohydrates, sugar and evolution
But, regardless of whether the concept is universal, the foods we usually turn to when seeking comfort or an injection of happiness through the gut seem to show something in common: they are rich in carbohydrates, fats and sugars.
Lukas Van Oudenhove is a psychiatrist at the University of Leuven, in Belgium, where he studies the relationship between our gut and our brain. He assures that evolution has a lot c ho to do with our obsession with high-fat foods .
“In the past, the food, and above all, the food rich in fats and sugars was scarce. And that’s why evolution designed us in such a way that people find strong motivation to eat that, ”he explains.
Van Oudenhove wanted to study if fats have an effect on our emotions , despite the fact that we do not notice their taste and many times we are not even aware of ingesting them.
“In our research we put a tube that fed patients through the nose directly into their stomach, which allowed us to supply them with fat and water without them knowing what they were receiving ”, he says.
His team found that fat attenuated sadness of the subjects in whom this emotion was induced.
“Although we used small doses, it especially stimulated the cells of the stomach and small intestine. And those cells exist primarily to produce different types of hormones that regulate whether we feel hungry or satiated. This happens mostly in a small region of the brain called the hypothalamus, ”says Van Oudenhove.
Food is a good source of energy and the remedy for malnutrition. For this reason, when we eat our brain releases chemicals that generate positive sensations , an evolutionary mechanism that pushes us to look for food and eat again and again
.
A similar process is the one that explains our love for carbohydrates and sugary foods.
- The psychological explanation of why we eat almost anything in the work (and what to do to avoid it)
- Why do we like crunchy food so much? (and how the sound became the forgotten flavor)
Our brain primitive
Dr. Shira Gabriel, from the State University of New York in Buffalo, also studies the connection between food and our emotions.
Believe that our ties to specific foods are related to positive experiences we had.
“As this is what one ate then, he associates them with the feelings of feeling cared for by others. These associations are strong “, Gabriel points out.
Our brain uses these ” positive associations “ to improve our mood.
“By eating these foods, I am able to activate those associations and they give me a burst of positive feelings and a sense of acceptance.”
We may not realize it, since those connections are usually unconscious. “Our primitive brain does that for us,” says Gabriel.
But why do we feel better if we are not always aware of those connections with childhood memories?
Gabriel responds: “Because when we ate them as children and we felt those favorable emotions, we encode all that information together. When you figure a memory in your mind, not only do you save a small part, like those macaroni and cheese, but you store everything that surrounded you while you ate those macaroni and cheese “.
” When you eat that food, it is not only the memory that is activated, but also the emotions you felt, such as feeling cared for, loved, safe and well. ”
Research has shown that People who had troubled relationships with their parents or really negative emotions as children tend not to benefit in the same way from comfort food, but according to Dr. Gabriel, they too will be inclined to eat it.
Can comfort food be harmful?
“Absolutely,” Gabriel responds. “Unfortunately, people are inclined to comfort food, even when it does not provide positive effects.”
Apart from the health effects usually associated with food with high levels of fats or sugars, such as obesity, diabetes and other diseases, there is the feeling of guilt that we often feel when we cannot avoid devouring things that we should not eat, sometimes even without being hungry.
Gabriel’s experiments have shown that not everyone feels good after eating comfort food and there are even those who feel anguish and strong remorse .
What’s wrong with me? Why am I such a glutton? We ask ourselves many times. But Dr. Gabriel affirms that it is important to keep in mind that this is nothing more than the result of “our mind taking care of us in a really nice way.”
Studies indicate that Women are more prone to these feelings of guilt than men.
A Cornell University study of 2005 in 300 individuals found that men tended to see comfort food as a reward, while women saw it as a license to take .
Van Oudenhove warns that the effects of comfort food are short-lived and that depending on them a lot can end up making us unhappy, by causing mood disorders or depression.
Scientists have only just begun to connect the dots. One of the theories that has attracted the attention of many lately is one that links obesity with inflammation.
“There is abundant evidence and interest in the connection between inflammation in the body and low-level inflammation in the brain, which is believed to be an important mechanism in disorders such as depression. ”
Is there alternative options?
The lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic may have made us turn to our comfort food more often and perhaps there are those who feel concerned about this. But Dr. Gabriel remembers that we can seek comfort and satisfaction in many other things, such as looking at photographs or reading books.
But if your thing is food, then Dr. Van Oudenhove suggests leaning towards foods rich in fiber .
The reason is that fiber feeds the three million bacteria in our large intestine, which in turn produce metabolites that can not only reduce inflammation, but also interact in various ways with the brain.
Van Oudenhove published a study on this recently. It found that, after a week, the volunteers who were given pills containing these metabolites showed a higher tolerance to stress than those who had only received a placebo.
“So this shows that these specific metabolites seem to play a role in regulating stress and, probably, emotions in general “, says the psychiatrist.
The fibers that can trigger said response They are found in whole grains like wheat and oats, in legumes like chickpeas, lentils, and beans, as well as in root vegetables.
So if you have to eat comfort food, you can at least knowing what science advises.
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