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When he is down, Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, one of the world's most famous chefs, prepares a noodle soup with buckwheat noodles. Harald Wohlfahrt from the restaurant Schwarzwaldstube indulges in a bad mood a slab whose enjoyment reminds him of his childhood on the farm. And Jamie Oliver serves chicken curry, burgers, all kinds of pasta and pies when his mood is lousy.
It's called "consolation". However, in moments of sadness or stress, most people resort to less hearty foods than the three star chefs. Above all, chocolate is considered reliable when it comes to creating happiness in dark hours. But why can food ever lead to a change of mood? And why is one happy sweet, where the other strokes his soul with the consumption of noodles?
Already at the first bite the reward system is activated
Food is vital. What sounds like a truism, becomes important if you want to understand the close connection between food and emotions: So that the person on its own is careful to always provide sufficient energy to work in the brain sophisticated control circuits.
Hormones from the gastrointestinal tract, pancreas, and adipose tissue will tell the brain if it's time for food intake. At the very first bite, the reward system is activated very quickly via the taste of the food - endorphins and dopamine flow into the blood. This effect works especially well with sweet and fat foods, because they indicate to the body that something very high in calories and thus particularly valuable has reached it.
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The consistency of the food also plays a role. Creamy, delicately melting, easy to eat or crunch - all this has a so-called "sensory-affective effect". According to the Viennese psychologist Helene Karmasin, consolation is often sought after in foods that resemble the type of "sweet porridge". "Drinking from vials comfort, which among other things makes the success of smoothies," says Karmasin.
Positive associations also play a role
Memories play an important role in what foods are perceived as consolation foods. They are caused by specific tastes and smells, such as when the scent of apple pie or fresh strawberries are associated with happy childhood days. Anyone who has been nursed healthily with semolina pudding as a child in a hospital bed will associate this food with parental care throughout his life.
That consolation works so quickly is also because certain foods symbolically represent the concept of social relationships in the brain. Jordan Troisi, a psychologist at the State University of New York, has shown in a study from 2011, how Comfort Food can chase away feelings of tension and loneliness. Hot dishes such as soup, mashed potatoes or rice pudding, as well as tea, are particularly suitable for this because heat is also an additional element of relaxation, while an apple is more associated with coldness, performance and stress.
But food also affects our minds in other ways. "The satiety effect of food, which is mediated by insulin or leptin, may give you a feeling of satisfaction," says André Kleinridders of the German Institute for Human Nutrition (DIfE).
Carbohydrate-rich meals such as pasta dishes also lead to increased levels of tryptophan in the blood, which can cross the blood-brain barrier and lead to increased formation of the happiness hormone serotonin. Also, substances such as caffeine or theobromine, which are in chocolate, have a mood-enhancing effect, but only delayed, about 30 minutes to one hour after the meal use.
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Consolation becomes dangerous when it turns into binge eating
"The comforting food is not worrying as long as it does not mean that in the long term you only eat unhealthy snacks," says Kleinridders. So if anger, frustration or worries and fears do not provide for alternative coping strategies and real eating offsets, it will eventually be bad for your health. The sugar metabolism gets out of joint, fat pads grow. According to the 2017 TK nutrition study, around one in four Germans is one of these stressors.
Some researchers suggest that early mother-child interaction is important when people can only comfort themselves with food. Feeding a child whenever it is dissatisfied increases the natural sedative effect of food. Michael Macht, psychologist at the University of Würzburg, however, does not consider this proven. There was no empirical evidence.
"Certainly emotional food will be learned in the course of life," says Macht. It may also have an impact if children are rewarded with food or punished. "Children also learn from role models," says Macht. So if mother or father are stress eaters, they look at that from the parents.
But even in adulthood, one is not immune to becoming an emotional eater. In a difficult situation, when you find that eating helps over the first grief, it can become a habit. Instead of diet, stress management is more important here.
In summary: Everyone has a favorite dish that drives away grief and stress. Physiological and psychological processes play a role here. This is only harmful if chronic stress is controlled exclusively with the help of sweet and fat snacks.