Chicken soup and other comfort foods
When your children are suffering from the flu or severe colds, the last thing they want to do is eat. Food tastes like ‘bleh’. They have no appetite…. and they just want mommy and a homemade chicken soup . Or whatever it was you make when your child is sick.
Certain foods make us feel better. Why is that? Why do we crave for comfort foods when we’re sick, feeling low and depressed, or highly stressed?
UCSF researchers reported that our cravings for comfort food may be our body’s attempt to put a brake on chronic stress. Comfort foods are usually high-energy foods (with sugar and/or fat) like chicken soup, chocolate chip cookies, cheeseburgers or ice cream. Energy-filled foods help us “stay in the game”. In an animal study, the researchers found that “glucocorticoids would both prompt vigilance to threats and send a signal to the brain of a chronically stressed animal to seek high-energy food. If it were successful in finding such food, stress and its attendant feelings would be terminated.”
I turn to chocolate ice cream when I’m stressed or depressed. And a hot soup always comforts me when I’m sick. My daughter asks for warm apple cider and lots of cuddling.
What food do YOU turn to when you’re sick or stressed? What comfort food do you serve your family when they’re down with something?
Tags: comfort food, sickness, stress, flu, chicken soup, remedy, home-made, colds, food
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POSTED IN: Common childhood illnesses, Family and Home, Infectious Diseases, Nutrition and Recipes
1 opinion for Chicken soup and other comfort foods
Marijke
Feb 1, 2008 at 12:19 pm
We don’t have a particular comfort food per se, but the other day when my 19 yr old dd called on her way home from her part-time job, she sounded soooo sick. So, I whipped up a small pot of chicken soup for her. Whether it was the soup or the fact that I made it, I don’t know, but it definitely put a smile on that sick face.
We tend to do the hot tea thing here too.
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