“Food is a lot of people’s therapy — when we say comfort food, we really mean that. It’s releasing dopamine and serotonin in your brain that makes you feel good.” — Brett Hoebel
“Comfort food is the food that makes us feel good — satisfied, calm, cared for and carefree. It’s food that fills us up both mentally and physically. Finding comfort in food is a basic human experience.” — Ellie Krieger
Last night, I turned the clocks back an hour. This morning the sun rose earlier and tonight it will set sooner. Daylight Savings Time is over and regardless of your views on its merits — or not — for me it’s the onset of Living the Mole Life, a season characterized by comfort foods, winter blues, the holidays, and weight gain. I isolate, sleep, and eat more than I do the rest of the year. I basically hibernate and retreat to my hideout.
This morning, I also turned the heat on. We’ve already had two early snowstorms. Until today, I’ve been taking the chill off my home (aka ‘the hideout’) by turning on my electric fireplace and enjoying the radiant heat and ambiance.
As most of my regular readers already know, I work part-time and enjoy three-day weekends. I’m also a creature of habit. I often like to prepare some comfort food on the weekend that I can eat for three or four days, unless I grow tired of it, then instead, freeze some for myself for the future or for my elderly father. On Friday, my comfort food menu choice was to prepare Spaghetti Bolognese. It was a good batch.
This morning, for Sunday Brunch at home after my weekly phone date with Dad, I made a breakfast hash with potatoes, onions, and leftover steak, and served it with poached eggs. Yes, leftovers can easily be repurposed into comfort food.
Full Disclosure: I’m a baby boomer, a home cook, not a chef or a foodie, and often prefer comfort foods that I grew up eating that evoke memories of people in my life, some still here, some gone. Comfort foods can also be associated with the holidays our families celebrate, our ethnic heritage and traditions, and specific special occasions from our past.
What Is comfort food?
Definition: “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.”
“Single people tend to eat more comfort foods.”
Apparently, I’m a double-winner.
From Wikipedia: “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.”
The Top 10 Comfort Foods in America
(From a survey published by PR Newswire)
- Pizza
- Burgers
- Fried chicken
- French fries
- Pasta
- Mac and cheese
- Grilled cheese
- Mashed potatoes
- Chili
- Tomato soup
As you might guess, different polls and surveys may yield different results, plus our own individual Top Ten Comfort Foods will be unique to our own heritage, memories, family holiday traditions and personal taste preferences.
The ranking website Ranker poll, America’s Favorite Comfort 
Foods, Top Ten based on 34K votes.
1. Grilled Cheese Sandwich
2. Chocolate
3. Pizza
4. Ice Cream
5. French Fries
6. Macaroni and Cheese
7. Chocolate Chip Cookies
8. Mashed Potatoes
9. Fried Chicken
10. Spaghetti & Meatballs
Following is a sample of some of my favorite comfort foods, most of which I learned at my mother’s side. She was a basic home cook from the 1950’s: Meat, potatoes, a vegetable, applesauce and a slice of white bread and butter if you were still hungry. Most people would consider her seasonings basic and bland, simply salt and pepper.
Homemade Chicken & Egg Dumpling Noodles
She made family specialties too, handed down from her mother and recipes popular at the time. Some of my favorites were her Chicken and Homemade Egg Dumpling Noodles, American-Style Chop Suey, Breaded Pork Chops with Whipped Potatoes and Gravy, Scalloped Potatoes with Ham, Sunday Pot Roasts and of course, her soups and blueberry pie. Since she was a working mother, she taught me at a young age to be a prep and sous chef to start the dinners. I’m grateful I learned the basics from her and over the years became more confident, experimental, and broadened my flavor palette.
Mom’s Recipe for Breaded Pork Chops, Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, Vegetable, & Applesauce
Mom’s Recipe for American-Style Chop Suey Served Over Rice
A sampling of my favorite comfort foods:
- Homemade Chicken & Egg Dumpling Noodles
- Mom’s American-Style Chop Suey
- My Asian-Style Noodle Bowl
- Chili
- Breaded Pork Chops with Mashed Potatoes & Gravy
- Donuts and Danish Racine Kringle
- Cookies & Milk
- Pizza
- Fried Chicken
- Pasta
Asian-Style Noodle Bowl
First Chili of the Season
And, yes, I still eat many of the foods that Baby Boomers still eat (I won’t tell you which ones!). See Foods That Might Die with Baby Boomers.
What are your favorite comfort foods?
Why do we eat more in winter?
From an article in Everyday Health, entitled, How Winter Affects Our Eating
“Are winter’s colder temps (in many parts of the country) and fewer daylight hours changes that affect eating and food cravings? Some researchers suspect cool weather may trigger an evolutionary relic inside us to fatten up to survive tough environmental conditions, the way many other animals do. One study published the journal Nature found that participants did consume an average of 86 more calories per day in fall, compared with spring, and ate more fat and saturated fat in the winter months.”
“Another theory is that the change of season may change the balance of some of the hormones that control hunger and appetite. A review published in 2013 in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, which looked at data both in people and in animals, found that seasonal changes did affect many hormones related to hunger and appetite, including glucocorticoids, ghrelin, and leptin.”
“Fewer daylight hours may affect food cravings, too. Sunlight is one of the factors that triggers the release of the hormone serotonin, a neurotransmitter that has been shown to boost your mood significantly. Carbohydrate intake (thanks to the insulin that gets released as a result) also increases serotonin levels — and research suggests that people thus may crave carbohydrates as a way to improve mood, particularly in people with seasonal depression, who may have lower serotonin levels and mood because of reduced exposure to sunlight.”
To read the entire article, click here.
Five Reasons We Eat More in the Winter
(From an article in Forbes magazine)
- We’re cold
- We’re less active
- We’re dehydrated
- We suffer from the winter blues
- We believe that we’d gain weight
To read more about the reasons and the solutions, click here.
The Holidays & Weight Gain
Late fall leads up to a trifecta of holidays, first Thanksgiving, followed by Christmas (insert alternative ethnic, religious, or pagan alternative), and ends with the New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day holiday.
A byproduct of the holidays are the body memories triggered by our senses — the sights, smells, tastes, touch, and sounds of the season. Add to the reminiscing, we relive holidays from the past, repeating family rituals, and remembering loved ones no longer with us. We share the foods and traditions we grew up with, and in the end, eat and drink more.
We’re also invited to holiday parties for work and with friends, plus potlucks, and holiday cookie exchanges. It seems like food is an element of every social invitation. At work, there are food gifts from clients and vendors, plus the cookies and candy coworkers want to share as part of the season’s goodwill and traditions. During the holidays, food is often given as gifts.
Oh, My! I avoid the bathroom scale, or obsess about my weight and begin researching diets for the New Year. Speaking of the New Year, for many of us, we imbibe more alcoholic or high calorie drinks, and high caloric dinners as part of the celebration.
We both revel in and endure the holidays. In the end, the excitement, anxiety, and anticipation leading up to the holidays is frequently followed afterwards by an emotional (and often physical) hangover and weariness. It’s not uncommon to hear people remark, “I survived the holidays.”
Tips to avoid winter weight gain
(From an article in Vitality)
If you’re concerned that you’re gaining weight in winter because of all the extra eating, here are a few quick pointers on how you can counteract the effects:
- When the urge to munch takes hold, fill up on healthy soups, stews and other low-calorie dishes that contain plenty of fiber-rich vegetables and other healthy ingredients, along with protein to keep you feeling satisfied.
- Find healthier versions of your favorite comfort foods so you can indulge without blowing your calorie budget.
- Snack regularly throughout the day on healthy options to keep your metabolism burning and help avoid cravings for high-fat, sugary treats.
- Get outside during daylight hours and try to get some sun on your exposed skin to top up your vitamin D and serotonin levels.
- If you think you’re suffering from SAD, take preventative measures and seek professional help if necessary.
- Continue to exercise regularly – it will boost your mood, take your mind off eating and burn up some of those extra calories.
- Find other sources of comfort for when you’re stressed that don’t involve food – think catching up with a friend, playing with a pet, or savoring a hot cup of tea.
- To prevent festive weight gain, check out our tips on avoiding festive overindulgence.
To read the entire article, click here.
Good morning – comfort food breakfast!
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Hibernation & The Holidays: Return to the Hideout
Thanksgiving: Things Change (Again!)
Childhood Comfort Food: Served with Memories
The Comfort of Sourdough Pancakes
Additional Reading on Comfort Food & Weight Gain
Great! Thanks as usual.
Lewis