Comfort food is overrated. We always turn to comfort food for so many reasons and excuses, and then we gain weight and blame our comfort food.
But what really is your typical comfort food? Comfort food is a simply prepared food that gives a sense of wellbeing; typically, comfort food is high with sugar or carbohydrate content that is associated with childhood or with home cooking. It also provides a nostalgic or sentimental feeling to the consumer. The nostalgia may be specific to either the individual or a specific culture. In short, comfort food is supposed to comfort you. It makes you associate with home or something that you love.
According to authors Melinda Smith and Jeanne Segal of HelpGuide, we don't always eat simply to satisfy hunger. We also turn to food for comfort, stress relief, or as a reward. Turning to comfort food is among the most popular emotional eating habits that we have.
You can ask yourself these questions every time you crave or hunt for your comfort food:
Do you eat more when you're feeling stressed?
Do you eat when you're not hungry or when you're full?
Do you eat to feel better (to calm and soothe yourself when you're sad, mad, bored, anxious, etc.)?
Do you reward yourself with food?
Do you regularly eat until you've stuffed yourself?
Does food make you feel safe? Do you feel like food is a friend?
Do you feel powerless or out of control around food?
If you answered yes to all questions or majority of these questions, you are certified to be emotionally hungry, hence wanting to indulge with your favorite comfort food. That's not the problem. The problem is, you love comfort food but you're uncomfortable with what's in your beloved comfort food! Since you know that the ingredients can be mostly sugar and carbs, you can make your own healthy, homey and nutritious recipe that would still serve as your comfort food that will surely put an end of you being uncomfortable.
