Comfort Food
If there is one thing my mom and I have in common, it's our feverish love of ice cream. I cannot recall a time when I, or my mom, even passed up an opportunity to get ice cream. It’s just too good, and neither one of us can’t resist that urge. I also have a similar infatuation with pizza and pancakes. If any of these foods are around me, I’ll probably end up eating way more than I should.
It’s not just me that has this condition. It’s called comfort food and we all eat it. These foods are often categorized as junk foods, or at the very least have no nutritional value. So why do we eat them? It’s because they bring nostalgia to us. They often bring us back to when we were little, or back to a place of safety. We associate these foods with certain things that bring us peace.
Whether it be chocolate, cookies, chips, or something else, chances are you enjoy at least one of these foods enough to consider it a comfort food. Try to pick just one and think of what you like about it. I’ll choose ice cream. I like ice cream because it has a variety of flavors, you can put any toppings you want on it, and it goes well with any meal.
Now let’s go a bit deeper. What is it about the food that brings you nostalgia or happiness? I often associate ice cream with summer, which is my favorite season. Some of my best memories have come from summer. I think of being on the beach, going to the fair, and hanging at the pool with friends. My birthday is also in the summer, so I have good memories of my birthday parties. And finally, it’s summer break, so there’s a lot of freedom during this time of year.
So how does this all relate to ice cream? We always want to recreate our best memories. We want to hold on to the good times for as long as we can. As a result, we tend to hang on to whatever brings us back to that feeling. Though I can’t go back to those days, having ice cream allows me to reclaim that feeling again. It connects me to those past experiences.
So now, think about the food you chose. Why does it make you happy? Chances are, you associate it with something from your past. You may like chocolate-chip cookies because you remember baking them with your grandma whenever she would visit. You may like cheeseburgers because you remember your dad grilling them for a cookout whenever your cousins would come over. You might even be like me and associate your food with a time of year. For example, you could like candy corn because it reminds you of fall or Halloween. Either way, the foods we enjoy the most, tend to reflect our past, and bring us back to a time of happiness.
Challenges/Points:
The food we eat can say a lot about our past.
We associate comfort foods with good memories.
These foods have a way of making us feel better during stressful or anxious times.
Questions:
What comfort foods do you turn to?
What causes you to eat those foods?
How did experiences in your past cause you to develop a love for that food?
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