Our brains choose comfort foods over our taste buds
What comes to mind when you think about your favorite food? Nachos are my favorite food. Even while I'm imaging a great pile of toppings that can really make the platter pop, I'm also picturing myself snuggling up with a huge giant dish of the items in front of my favorite movie, sharing them with pals. When I desire nachos, I seek not just the flavor but also the warm and fuzzy feelings that have accompanied my previous nacho-eating experiences. And while some of the nachos have been objectively awful, with scorched cheese or too many jalapenos, the food has retained its relationship with happy memories. According to the New York Times, this mental link characterizes our favorite comfort meals more than the flavor.
What defines a meal as "comfort food"?
There is some actual science behind the concept of "comfort food": eating anything causes the brain to generate opioid-based compounds, and carbs, in particular, raise serotonin levels. If you consider yourself to have a sweet tooth, it simply indicates that you have greater brain-reward reactions to sugary meals.
Certain meals, however, are more soothing than others due to our familiarity with them. According to The New York Times, comfort foods vary by culture since they are associated with meals we were fed by individuals who cared for us when we were little. This is why meals linked with healing during illness, such as soup, are frequently seen as comfort foods. Your parents, grandparents, or whoever was feeding you as a youngster dictated the meals you craved during times of emotional turmoil as an adult.
Another sensation that is strongly linked to both memory and food is scent. We sense scent in a section of the brain that is directly connected to the areas of the brain that process emotions and memory, so the smell of a particular cuisine might instantaneously elicit a comforting memory. If you had cinnamon rolls on a particularly good day with your family, the scent of cinnamon rolls can swiftly transport you back to that memory.
The converse is also true: links between food and memory can lead to a list of "never again" meals connected with terrible events. It's one of the reasons why a terrible tequila encounter might put you off for good.
How businesses are profiting from nostalgia
Naturally, brands are always attempting to capitalize on those pleasant mental memories. Whole Foods labeled "retro products" a trend to watch in 2023 earlier this month, and we've already seen several large businesses jump on board this year. McDonald's reintroduced Happy Meal Halloween Pails to appeal to our inner child, White Castle has released a full menu harkening back to 1921, and social media sites like @Snack Memories serve as a reminder of all of our favorite treats from a bygone period.
Some companies are even preparing to cash in on future nostalgia by retiring iconic goods such as Klondike's Choco Taco and McDonald's McRib. Testing the waters of how people emotionally react to the loss of a product might be a good sign of how deep those memories reach. People will line up for the next chance to sample it because of their favorable recollections.
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