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A few nights ago, I went to a production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy “The Importance of Being Earnest.” In the last act, two young men who have just been rejected by their girl friends are served tea by the butler. As they discuss with some agitation what to do, one of them methodically eats all the small muffins on the teacart. When asked by the other how he can eat while so distressed he says,” Eating consoles” and adds something like “when all is lost, there is always food and wine.”
I laughed to myself when I heard those words written more than a century ago because obviously the playwright knew about comfort foods, even though the term had not yet been invented. In fact, I am sure many writers have had their characters eat something starchy or sweet when dealing with stress. I remember a scene from the English movie “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” in which a young woman is crying and eating a pan of brownies at the same time. Her boyfriend has just left her to visit another lover. She tells someone in the kitchen, as her tears fall into the pan, that eating sweets is the only way to deal with the pain.
One does not have to be a character in a work of fiction to experience the power of food to blunt emotional pain. Any food that increases your brain’s ability to decrease stress is going to make you feel better. There are really two types of food that do this: carbohydrates and fats. Carbs, sweet (i.e. brownies) and/or starchy (i.e. English muffins) will stimulate the production of serotonin. This brain chemical functions to restore emotional tranquility and does so within minutes of the carbohydrate being digested. There is nothing magical about a potato or a bowl of oatmeal to help diminish stress. They are carbohydrates and when eaten, allow an amino acid, tryptophan, to get into the brain and make new serotonin. Protein foods block this effect, and if protein is eaten along with the carbohydrates, the effect is also blocked. Fruits, and all except the starchiest vegetables, also have no effect on relieving stress.
Fatty foods may take away emotional pain but not so much by comforting as by stifling. When a large amount of high-fat foods are consumed, people respond by becoming emotional zombies. Had the two characters in “The Importance of Being Earnest” wolfed down bacon cheeseburgers or nachos drenched in melted cheese (fortunately neither food was available in the late l9th century) they would have been too emotionally comatose by the time their girlfriends changed their minds in the next scene to respond.
Fortunately, for those of us always trying to keep our weight steady or lose weight, it doesn’t take much carbohydrate to make ourselves feel better. If the food is low in fat and eaten in small amounts, serotonin is made without any damage to our calorie intake. Three or four low-fat crunchy rice or soy crackers, one sheet of graham crackers, two thin slices of cinnamon toast, four or five marshmallows, or a 3 low-fat meringue cookies are enough to easy the emotional distress and make you feel better. The effect does not occur instantly; the food has to be digested first. But the low fat content speeds up digestion so relief comes within minutes.
Obviously no carbohydrate snack will remedy the situation that caused the stress to begin with; even fiction writers can’t do this for their characters. But feeling better at least allows you to turn the page on your own life with greater contentment.
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She describes herself as a "foodie who sometimes abuses hair care products." After graduating in 1997 with a B.A. in English , she worked as an interactive art director in advertising for eight years. While serving time behind a desk in midtown Manhattan, she realized she actually liked her job but didn't see it as a career. 
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