Macaroni and Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, Chocolate - Which One is Your Comfort Food?

The taste or smell of a certain food is often a trip down Memory Lane into a childhood, bringing back feelings of security, protection and unconditional love.

Many times, there is one food in particular a person reaches for when not feeling at their best, like chicken soup for a bad cold, potato soup for an upset stomach or warm milk for a sleepless night. Feelings of sadness or loneliness often bring on the craving for spaghetti, macaroni and cheese and especially chocolate. Something warm, sweet or crunchy can hit just the right spot, bringing emotional comfort when a person is feeling down and out or angry. That's how the phrase "comfort food" was coined.

Meat Loaf

Frequently, comfort foods are those treats a mom or dad made for a sick, troubled or even happy child, like hot cocoa to warm hands on a cold night or hamburgers and hot dogs grilled by dad at birthday or holiday celebrations. A warm fire, a toasty piece of bread and a hot bowl of a favorite soup can be just the thing to cheer anyone up!

The only drawback to comfort foods is that they are almost always high in fat and caloric content. This may be because these foods with emotional attachments come from early memories, when parents are on shoestring budgets (beans and taters are less expensive than turkey breast and quiche). So unfortunately, these special, tasty foods are not always as great for the body as for the soul.

Some of the top Southern Comfort Foods are:

* Macaroni and Cheese

* Mashed Potatoes

* Fried Chicken

* Meat Loaf

* Home Baked Bread or Biscuits

What are YOUR top 5 favorite comfort foods?

Macaroni and Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, Chocolate - Which One is Your Comfort Food?

Linda Talbott Brewer is the Nashville Comfort Food Examiner for Examiner.com, Nashville. With years of experience as a mom and cook as well as years in the health and fitness industry, she is not only the right person for the job but also the person who can take those high calorie comfort foods and make them a healthier choice, while still keeping those comforting flavors.

Linda will be writing many more recipes for ezine as well as for examiner Nashville. Check back often for food adventures, food oddities, comfort foods, healthy comfort food makeovers and food histories.

Visit Linda's Examiner page at http://www.examiner.com/x-26032-Nashville-Comfort-Food-Examiner

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