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The psychology of comfort food - why we look to carbs for solace
Emotional eating
Emotional eating occurs in response to stress, and in people who restrict their food intake.
Eating sweet and fatty foods may improve mood temporarily by making us feel more energetic and happier, but when comfort food becomes a habit, it comes at a cost, such as weight gain.
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Stress can prevent you from keeping a healthy weight
Stress can prevent you from keeping a healthy weight.
Every time you're stressed, your adrenal glands release adrenaline and cortisol. Your body releases gluc...
Cortisol and sugar cravings
With increased levels of cortisol, your body is supplied with glucose for energy, and your body signals the need for extra sugar.
The downside of eating sugar is that your body tends to store sugar, especially after stressful situations, as abdominal fat. The vicious cycle continues: stress, cortisol release, craving sugar, weight gain.
Cortisol and metabolism
Cortisol slows down your metabolism, decreasing your ability to lose weight.
Researchers found that women who reported one or more stressors burned fewer calories than non-stressed women. Stressed women also had higher insulin levels, resulting in fat storage.
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Describing a food craving
A food craving can be described as an intense and sometimes uncontrollable desire for a specific food. This desire can leave a person unsatisfied until they have tasted that particular food...
Why we crave food
Food cravings occur in the same regions in the brain as memory, pleasure, and reward.
- Physical hunger develops over time, and you will desire a variety of different foods. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly and is usually for a specific food that makes you feel good while eating it.
- Emotional eating can turn into a bad habit. Food provides satisfaction. When you experience satisfaction, your brain is flooded with dopamine, which motivates you to keep eating to feel good.
Eliminating the pleasure gained from food
Research revealed that the brain's underlying desire for sweet can be removed by manipulating the neurons in the amygdala. By manipulating the connections to the amygdala, we might lack the basic emotional reaction to taste.
It's like eating your favorite chocolate cake, but not getting enjoyment from doing so. This study could be groundbreaking in treating certain eating disorders.
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Banana bread is a favorite
Banana bread has always been popular. In the age of the pandemic, there is a soaring spike of interest in this food above other daily favorites.
Kitchen novices and professional chefs thi...
Avoiding food waste
Buying produce is a bit tricky these days. But bananas are at low risk. You eat them fresh, or when they are overripe, you put them in the freezer until you have enough to make banana bread.
The first banana recipe was published in 1933 during the Great Depression as a means of stretching a week's groceries.
An achievement for anybody
- You don't have to be a great baker to make banana bread a success. It is an easy-to-reach achievement in a time when we're all feeling defeated.
- It is also a great canvas for experimentation. Beer can be incorporated as well as shredded coconut, dark chocolate or cinnamon. Traditional flour can be substituted with coconut flour.
- For some, baking banana bread has a meditative quality. Others find that it helps to maintain their sanity. It feels like an active form of self-care.