Hello everyone It's me again @Oslec08 , I'm back again after taking a 1 day break yesterday we had a family party and It's so much fun . having all my Comfort foods on the table , In this article we are going to talk about comfort food.
What is Comfort Food?
is a traditional food which often provides a nostalgic or sentimental feeling to the consumer, and is often characterized by a high carbohydrate level and simple preparation. The nostalgic element most comfort food has may be specific to either the individual or a specific culture.
food that provides consolation or a feeling of well-being, typically any with a high sugar or other carbohydrate content and associated with childhood or home cooking.
One study divided college-students' comfort-food identifications into four categories (nostalgic foods, indulgence foods, convenience foods, and physical comfort foods) with a special emphasis on the deliberate selection of particular foods to modify mood or effect, and indications that the medical-therapeutic use of particular foods may ultimately be a matter of mood-alteration.
Nostalgic Foods- Comfort food is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone, and may be characterized by its high caloric nature, high carbohydrate level, or simple preparation. The nostalgia may be specific to an individual, or it may apply to a specific culture.
Indulgence Foods- When you do something in an overly generous or permissive way, you do it indulgently. If your grandparents spoil you, they treat you indulgently. You can say you eat indulgently when you dine on luxurious food and take a long time to finish your meal — you're giving yourself permission to feast.
Convenience Foods- a food, typically a complete meal, that has been pre-prepared commercially and so requires little cooking by the consumer.
Convenience food are used to shorten the time of meal preparation at home. Some foods can be eaten immediately or after adding water, heating or thawing; canned soup and frozen dinners are two examples. Other convenience foods such as cake mixes are only partially prepared.
Physical Comfort Foods- are those that offer comfort either through their physical attributes or through the physical changes they bring about in the consumer.
The identification of particular items as comfort food may be idiosyncratic, though patterns are detectable. In one study of American preferences, "males preferred warm, hearty, meal-related comfort foods (such as steak, casseroles, and soup), while females instead preferred comfort foods that were more snack related (such as chocolate and ice cream). In addition, younger people preferred more snack-related comfort foods compared to those over 55 years of age." The study also revealed strong connections between consumption of comfort foods and feelings of guilt.
Comfort food consumption has been seen as a response to emotional stress and, consequently, as a key contributor to the epidemic of obesity in the United States. The provocation of specific hormonal responses leading selectively to increases in abdominal fat is seen as a form of self-medication.
Further studies suggest that consumption of comfort food is triggered in men by positive emotions, and by negative ones in women. The stress effect is particularly pronounced among college-aged women, with only 33% reporting healthy eating choices during times of emotional stress. For women specifically, these psychological patterns may be maladaptive.
A therapeutic use of these findings includes offering comfort foods or "happy hour" beverages to anorectic geriatric patients whose health and quality of life otherwise decreases with reduced oral intake.
What Is Anorectic Geriatric Patients?
Older people frequently fail to ingest adequate amount of food to meet their essential energy and nutrient requirements. Anorexia of aging, defined by decrease in appetite and/or food intake in old age, is a major contributing factor to under-nutrition and adverse health outcomes in the geriatric population.
I'm going to share my Comfort Foods with pictures.
You What is/are your Comfort foods?
Share your answers with others on the comment section below thanks for reading this article God Bless !
Can I include COFFEE as my comfort food though it isn't a food but rather a drink?😅