So, what’s the deal with comfort food? I get that it’s supposed to be stuff that makes you feel good upon consuming, for reasons other than purely merits of taste or nutrition. Mother’s cooking you grew up on would come the closest to being a comfort food for a lot of us, certainly me. But, I’m not so sure that I would like to make food the source of comfort. There are dangers in doing that.
When you get into a relationship with food that has to do with emotional fulfillment, you are laying the ground for food dependence. You are giving over control to another, in this case, food. You will reach out for it every time you feel sad or unfulfilled, or frustrated, or lonely. You will try to fill emotional yearnings with food. You will crave food whenever you need a pick-me-up. Sounds familiar? Most addictions do.
This might be an extremity of the concept of ‘comfort food’. But it’s better to become aware of the relationship one has with one’s food. And it can be done quite easily, by asking oneself a few simple questions:
· Do I crave food when I am sad? Or lonely, depressed, etc?
· Does eating make me feel happy, and do I use food to become happy?
· Is my unconscious, for-comfort eating making me unhealthy?
· Do I sometimes overeat without realizing it, which basically means I am eating without being conscious of what I am eating?
True comfort food, in my opinion, is what I eat mindfully, consciously. It fills me, nourishes me, and creates a deep feeling of well-being.
