The Comfort Food Craving: What It Is and What It Is Asking For

Something goes wrong and you want mashed potatoes. Or soup. Or the exact biscuits your grandmother kept in a tin by the kettle. The craving is not really about hunger. It is about something older: a feeling of safety, a memory of being looked after, a moment when everything was all right.

Comfort food cravings are some of the most human experiences there are, and also some of the most misunderstood. This article looks at what they are doing, what research says about them, and how to respond without turning a craving into a crisis.

A fictional example

The following is an illustrative example, not a real person’s story.

After a difficult phone call with her mother, Erin finds herself making a bowl of the pasta dish her mother used to cook when she was small. She eats it slowly, at the table, and for a few minutes something loosens in her chest. Then she finishes, and the loneliness comes back.

• What she thinks: “I shouldn’t need this.” “It’s just carbs.”
• What she feels: homesickness, warmth while eating, then guilt.
• What she does: eats the whole pot, then criticizes herself for it.

What Erin is reaching for is not really pasta. It is the feeling of being cared for, and the pasta is the nearest thing that carries that feeling.

What research says about comfort food

• Comfort food is about belonging. In a series of four studies, researchers found that comfort food was associated with relationship partners and social connection. People who ate comfort food after a belonging threat showed less loneliness. The authors proposed that comfort food serves as a kind of “social surrogate” [1].
• But it may not work as well as we think. In a later experiment, participants watched a sad film and then ate their nominated comfort food, a non-comfort food, a neutral food, or nothing. Mood improved equally in all conditions. The authors concluded that comfort food may not provide comfort beyond what time and the natural recovery of mood already deliver [4].
• Chocolate improves mood, briefly. In one study, eating chocolate after a negative mood induction improved mood compared to no food, but the effect was short-lived [3].

What to make of this. The social-surrogate finding and the equal-recovery finding are not contradictory. Comfort food may genuinely activate memories of warmth and connection, without that activation producing measurable mood improvement beyond what happens anyway. The craving is real; the question is what it is actually asking for.

What the craving might be asking for

When you want comfort food, try asking which of these feels closest:

• Safety. “I want to feel protected.” The food represents a time when someone else was in charge.
• Connection. “I want to feel close to someone.” The food carries the memory of being with people who cared.
• Care. “I want to be looked after.” The food is something someone once made for you.
• Simplicity. “I want one thing to be easy.” The food is familiar and requires no decisions.
• Sensory soothing. “I want something warm, soft, filling.” The physical properties of the food match what the body needs.

None of these is wrong. The useful question is whether food alone can meet the need, or whether it needs help.

Questions to sit with

• What does this particular food remind me of?
• If I could have anything right now, not just food, what would it be?
• Am I eating because I want this food, or because I want what it represents?
• What would “being comforted” look like if food were not an option?

A small optional practice: comfort food with attention

Next time you want comfort food:

1. Make it or get it deliberately, not frantically.
2. Sit down with it. Use a plate. Put the phone away.
3. While you eat, notice what memories or feelings come up.
4. When you finish, check: what is still missing?

If something is still missing, that is information. It tells you the craving was partly about something food cannot fully provide.

A worked example

Erin tries this the next time she reaches for her mother’s pasta. She makes it slowly, sits at the table, and pays attention. She notices the smell brings back her mother’s kitchen and a specific feeling of being small and safe. She also notices that what she really wants is to talk to someone who knows her well. After eating, she calls a friend. The combination, the pasta and the phone call, leaves her feeling better than either would alone.

When it might be more than a craving. If comfort eating regularly involves very large amounts, eating in secret, feeling unable to stop, or intense distress afterwards, these are signs the NIMH describes for binge-eating disorder [5]. In the UK, Beat’s helpline for England is 0808 801 0677 [6]. In the US, call or text 988 if you are in crisis [5]. This article is general education, not treatment.

If comfort eating tends to happen most in the evening, when food is your main way to unwind looks at that pattern. If the craving comes after a moment of feeling you have “failed,” examining the “I already ruined today” thought may be useful.