Do Our Traditions Affect Comfort Foods?

How much power do parents have over the current and future eating habits of their children? In their article, Triosi and Gabriel provide evidence that, in times of isolation and loneliness, individuals may turn to comfort foods for support. These comfort foods, they say, are determined based on the foods' associations with significant relationships. Then, when the food is consumed or even thought about, those relational connections are rekindled and provide emotional comfort and relief. Could parents, then, create memories and traditions around certain foods in order to influence the types of food their children turn to in life? I think that Triosi and Gabriel would say yes. 

Why then, do we have such a cultural consensus about which foods constitute comfort foods? Do a Google Image search for “comfort food” and you will find the same images again and again: macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, biscuits and gravy, cakes, and pies. Despite the fact that Triosi and Gabriel’s study suggests no nutritional differences between foods people identified as comfort foods and new foods, there is a definite cultural perception that comfort food is carbohydrate-rich, fatty, and salty. What lies behinds this image of comfort food? 

One possibility is that our collective perception of comfort food differs from people’s personal experiences. Perhaps, even though we associate high-sodium, high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods with comfort, in individuals’ lives, they tend to turn toward a variety of foods, whichever ones they have positive relational associations with. Alternatively, the comforting effect could be linked directly to the types of nutrients in the food, but, as noted in the Christensen and Brooks article, there is no good theory for how, biologically, carbohydrate-rich foods would improve moods. It is also possible, however, that we, as a culture, tend to build food traditions around these types of fatty and carbohydrate-heavy foods and thus create food-relationship associations for these specific types of foods. For example, at Thanksgiving Americans usually eat mashed potatoes, gravy, pie, and turkey. At my family’s celebration of Passover, we eat brisket, matzoh ball soup, and rich desserts. When I make food with family or friends, we often bake, and the resulting food-relationship associations that I have created involve raspberry scones, pancakes, and a Jewish dessert called Mendel bread. If these are the types of food traditions that my family and other families create, it makes sense that we would gravitate toward foods high in fat, carbohydrates, and sodium in times of loneliness, assuming that the conclusions of Triosi and Gabriel’s study are correct. 

This situation of creating food traditions around sodium-, fat-, and carbohydrate-packed foods seems troublesome in light of both the physical and emotional health impacts. Most of us already know that these might not be the best foods to overload on for our physical health, but Hendi’s article also suggests that foods rich in these nutrients may be correlated with a negative mood two days later. Though Hendi’s study did not address causation, it is important to note that the foods that many of us may turn to for emotional comfort are correlated with negative mood states.  Could this potentially create a cycle of bad eating and emotional distress?