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The Scoop on Comfort Food

By Linda Formichelli

Mashed potatoes. Macaroni and cheese. Peanut butter. Meatloaf. What do all these foods have in common?
If you're American, you'll probably recognize these goodies as comfort foods. Not only are they the meals we grew up with--but as you'll see below, they've got just the right smells, flavors, textures, and chemical compositions to make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even on the coldest day.

The Smell Connection
Just as the smell of Play-Doh or crayons brings us back to more carefree times, so do the smells of the foods we enjoyed as children. According to the study "Snack Food Hedonistics and Personality" by the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, our positive childhood emotions become displaced onto the inanimate objects, sounds, smells, and tastes that we experienced at the same time that we were experiencing the emotions. In a phenomenon called "olfactory evoked recall," an odor can induce a memory from the past along with the associated positive mood. That's why the smell of buttery mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese can carry us back to the days when our biggest worry was a spelling quiz.

The Texture Connection
Something else you may notice about the comfort foods listed above is that they're all soft and somewhat smooth--or, as Ruth Adams Bronz puts it, "baby food for adults." "Foods that taste warm and comfortable and uncomplicated are the best comfort foods," says Adams Bronz, who is a cookbook writer, the host of her own radio program on cooking and a dedicated food history researcher. "It gives you enormous physical and psychic comfort." Not only that, but there's a propensity to double your pleasure by doubling up on soft, creamy foods, such as mashed potatoes or rice with gravy.

The Taste Connection
When Adams Bronz called comfort foods "baby food for adults," she wasn't kidding. The foods we think of as comfort foods tend to be smooth and bland tasting. "Most comfort foods don't have intense flavors like garlic or anchovies," says Adams Bronz.

Of course, anything sweet racks up more points in our comfort books--and this goes back way farther than our childhoods. "Throughout the ages, people have liked sweet things," says Thomas Shipley, Ph.D., a psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia who teaches a course on the psychology of food. "The term 'manna' is believed to have come from an insect that lives on the leaves of trees. They get covered with sugar from the tree sap, and in biblical times, people ate these sweet insects."

The Chemical Connection
You'd think that smell and taste alone would be enough to trigger those warm feelings, but many of the foods we consider comfort foods also boost the flow of feel-good chemicals in our bodies. For example, when you get too little fat, the amount of endorphins in your body is decreased. In this case, eating a fatty food like chocolate or cheesecake can kick up the level of endorphins and get us feeling good again. (If you don't know how endorphins make you happy, here's a hint: the word "endorphin" is an abbreviated form of "endogenous morphine," which indicates a morphine produced naturally in the body.) And if you're getting too little in the way of carbs, levels of the mood boosting brain chemical seratonin drop.
  According to Susan Patton, MS, RD, LD, a registered dietician who hosts a cooking demonstration called "Health Source" on WBNS 10TV and coordinates the nutrition education and training program for the Ohio Department of Education, the mood altering effect of fat and carbs is why, for many people, chocolate is the perfect comfort food. Not only is chocolate half carbs and half fat, but it contains methylxanthines, stimulators that create a feeling of satisfaction. Eating chocolate also releases endorphins, and chocolate contains tryptophan, an amino acid that helps in the production of seratonin.

The Gender Connection
The comfort foods we crave depend to a certain extent on our gender. According to Adams Bronz, men are much more conservative when it comes to comfort foods. "They develop their comfort foods much earlier, and tend to stick to the masculine meat-and-potatoes," she says. "Women have a broader variety of comfort foods because they were traditionally the cooks in the family. They had more of an opportunity to cook and try new things."

Lighten Up
It seems as if every aspect of comfort food--the enticing smell, taste, texture, and chemical composition, combined with the fact that most comfort foods are laden with calories--is conspiring to make us pack on the pounds. What can we do to lighten up comfort foods without sacrificing the comfort? Two tactics that work are to reduce the calorie content of the comfort foods or to replace them with something lighter yet still satisfying.

Ian McKay, an instructor at The School of Culinary Arts at The Art Institute of Seattle, has several secrets for cutting the calories in comfort foods. One tip is to use fat free evaporated milk in place of some of the cream and whole milk in foods like mashed potatoes and hot chocolate. Another idea is to thicken soups and sauces with pureed cooked vegetables instead of cream. And to keep that comforting roast from stewing in fat, try setting the meat on a rack made of veggies such as carrots, celery, or onions, which will flavor the roast while letting the fat drip away. You can find more tips in this month's Q&A with dietician Gay Riley.

The other option is to replace calorie-laden comfort foods with healthier treats. According to Patton, you can find a comforting yet healthy food that will satisfy your every craving. If you're feeling tense, for example, try chewy foods like dried fruit or licorice. If a feeling of security is what you crave, warm, filling foods like oatmeal fit the bill. And if you feel the need to be nurtured, choose creamy foods like Fudgsicles, lowfat cottage cheese, reduced-fat cream soup, or a milk shake made with skim milk.

Finally, a quote we should all take to heart from Thomas Shipley: "You're better off with moderation than with starvation. A little bit of comfort food is a good idea."

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