Comfort Food Essay

479 Words2 Pages
“Is it really a cookie I need or just a hug?” A familiar friend on a gloomy day, comfort food has the ability to heal ones soul. It is an emotional balm in the form of food, although some would say that comfort food is an emotional crutch for the weak minded. Comfort food does have its draw backs, considering most all comfort food we eat is high in calories, fat, and sugar. By today’s health standards this food could cause a person’s discomfort in the first place, but I believe the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Take that Surgeon General! Science would have us believe that our attraction and yearning for comfort food can be traced back to a chemical reaction that happens in the brain; every time we eat it our brain releases feel good hormones known as serotonin. If this is the case then why does my friend Sarbjeet’s comfort food which is Khad, a mud like east Indian dish that simply repulses me and comes nowhere near to setting off my “feel good hormones”, put a smile on his face every time? I believe that indulging in comfort food is a learned behavior. It may remind us of the home we were in as a child, or the wonderful feelings we had when we received a snack on a warm Saturday afternoon. It’s apparent that all these good feelings experienced through certain foods were substantial enough for a company to publish a whole series of books based on nothing else than western civilization’s number one comfort food, chicken soup (For the Soul). I wonder if the Japanese translated versions were named “Sushi for the Soul”? At the end of the day it does not matter what part of the world your comfort food is from, what is important is that it meets the basic requirements of such a tall food order. It must make you feel safe and happy, it must make you feel better when you are sick, it must take you back to your roots, and above all else it must make you feel like a
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