Why We Crave ‘Comfort Food’

When I’m stressed, I often crave kasha varnishkes, an Ashkenazi Jewish dish made from buckwheat groats, sautéed onions and bow-tie noodles that appeared on nearly every holiday table as I grew up. Thanks to its distinctive aroma, my husband can’t even be in the same room with the stuff. For him, comfort comes in a bowl of pasta with his Sicilian great-grandmother’s tomato sauce. When there’s no time for old-world cooking, ice cream works for both of us.

This is the essence of a term apparently coined in a 1966 newspaper column by psychologist Joyce Brothers: “Adults, when under severe emotional distress, turn to what may be called ‘comfort food’ — food associated with the security of childhood, like mother’s poached egg or famous chicken soup.”

Back in Brothers’ day, most comfort food (like most foods) would have been homemade or minimally processed. But in the decades since, food manufacturers have used increasingly sophisticated technologies to create affordable, highly processed versions of favorite American comfort foods like mashed potatoes, cake and ice cream. Calorie-laden and heavy on salt, fat and sugar, these ultraprocessed foods make today’s comfort foods more bingeable and less healthy than those of previous generations.