Comfort Food Essay

774 Words4 Pages
Every now and then we get into a mood where we just need a hug or someone to be there for us. Unfortunately there isn’t always someone there for us, so we turn to something else. Comfort food is good mood food that makes us feel better not only in the sense of comfort, but chemically and psychologically. Everyone has a comfort food be it ice cream or be it a bologna sandwich. Comfort food comes in all shapes and sizes. Webster dictionary define it as “food prepared in a traditional style having a usually nostalgic or sentimental appeal.” This means that comfort food makes us feel emotional or give us that feel good feeling we get when we remember the good times we had with that food. If you would recall the film “Ratatouille”, Anton Ego “The Grim Eater” was won over by the simple meal of just onions, green bell peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes baked in olive oil. That’s right; as Collete, female chef from the movie, says “Ratatouille? It's a peasant dish.” This simple, yet delicious “peasant’s dish” wins over the food critic because it reminds him of his child hood and how happy he was when he took that small but powerful bite. It flashes back to him as a little boy and he comes in sad and sobbing, his mother hands him a bowl of Ratatouille Stew and rubs his face gently. He smiles a little, then takes a bite, he grins from ear to ear. It’s amazing what simple food can do to a person’s mood with just one little bite. Why do we eat comfort food to make us happy? Science tries to explain our need for comfort food as a sort of chemical reaction in the brain. Our brain releases feel good hormones into our bodies in order to get rid of negative feelings that we experience in our daily lives. These “feel good” chemicals do several things. They can make us feel safe, feel better or even loved. Scientists found that the human brain naturally contains
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