Do you ever eat a food which makes you feel warm and good inside?
I'm Oliver and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
The best place to practice your listening skills while learning new English vocabulary and phrases.
Today I'm quite excited because we are talking about one of my favourite topics and that is food.
We're going to look at something that everyone experiences.
And that is a feeling of comfort food.
So these are special foods that make us feel warm, safe and happy.
And we call this comfort food.
Have you ever had a specific dish or food that makes you feel better whenever you're sad, tired or even just need a good feeling?
You know what food to go to.
That food is comfort food.
We're going to explore why these foods have such a strong effect on our emotions.
But first, we are going to look, as always, at some key vocabulary for the episode.
I want you to listen to these words and their definitions and during the episode, try to hear them.
Actively listen for those vocabulary.
But first, if you're new here or if you've been listening for a while and you haven't subscribed or followed the podcast, make sure you are subscribed or following.
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Let's look at our key vocabulary.
The first word is comfort.
Comfort.
And this is a feeling of being relaxed, warm and happy.
Often without pain or worry.
After a long day, for example, a warm bath or a shower gives me great comfort.
It makes me feel comfortable.
The second word, memory.
Memory.
This is also a noun and it means something you remember from the past.
It's the ability to remember things as well.
For example, I could say if I hear a nice song that I love, or from my past I can say this song brings back happy memories from my childhood.
The third word is dish, which is also a noun.
All of our words today are nouns.
So dish is a specific type of prepared food, like a meal or a part of a meal.
For example, pasta is a popular Italian dish.
Sushi is a popular Japanese dish.
Or ramen, for example, too.
Our fourth word, this is a good one.
It is craving, craving.
And this is a strong desire, or rather maybe a very strong desire, a very strong want, when you really want something.
And it is in the context of wanting a food or something else.
For example, I have a craving for some chocolate right now.
And our final word for today is emotion.
Emotion.
Also a noun, this is a strong feeling like happiness, sadness, anger or love.
Food can often very strongly affect our emotions.
So keep these words in mind as we talk about the special power of comfort food.
Now let's go to the main episode.
But first, if you love this topic of comfort food and how food affects our emotions, I'm doing an extra episode on Patreon only this week, which is about how music so listening to music and different songs affects our emotions.
So we're going to look more in detail and a bit more advanced on this topic of emotions and how we can be affected.
So that will be out on Patreon this week, probably on Tuesday.
So if you'd like to support the show, it's the best way to support me and support Easy English and to help keep these episodes free of charge and available to everyone.
But listening is enough, so thank you so much for just listening and supporting.
Okay, so what exactly is a comfort food or comfort food?
It's not usually fancy or expensive food.
It's often quite similar, quite, sorry, simple, familiar and easy to eat.
I combined those words together in my head and said similar.
But it's often simple, familiar and easy to eat.
Think about a dish that reminds you of your home, your childhood or a time when you felt safe and loved.
Perhaps a really good memory.
For example, in many Western countries a classic comfort food might be homemade chicken soup or another soup that you've had when you were not feeling so well.
Maybe your mother or father made this soup for you.
Or for Americans, perhaps it is mac and cheese, macaroni and cheese.
So these are foods that would feel like a warm hug from the inside because of the memories.
It's not just about the taste, that feeling of taste.
It's about the feeling that it gives you, a feeling of comfort.
It can be sweet, salty, creamy, warm, and maybe even cold. but it always feels familiar and good.
It's the food that you might turn to when you need to feel a little bit happier or if you just want to feel cozy.
Why do these simple dishes, these simple food dishes, have such a powerful effects on our emotions?
It's mostly about our memories and psychology.
Often comfort food is something that we eat when we are children, when we were children, cooked by a parent or grandparent.
So these are childhood memories.
And, as a result, these foods are connected to happy, safe memories of our childhood, family and being cared for.
When we eat them again, our brain remembers those good feelings.
And it's why everyone well, not everyone, but most people love their food, cultures or home cooking, their home cuisine.
It's not necessarily that it's the best food in the world.
It's because of the emotions and subconscious memories that are connected to these foods.
The next reason is that eating something familiar, something that we remember, something familiar and warm, it can give us a sense of security and safety.
It's predictable and it's known to us.
And this can be very calming to our minds, to our bodies, especially in times of high stress or uncertainty.
You know when everything is crazy in your life or you've had a tough week or a tough day and you want something that you know is good for you, good to you, and that you enjoy and that you have good memories with.
It's a safe choice and it's a great option.
And sometimes food is also used to celebrate or show love.
When someone cooks your favorite dish for you, it's an act of love, of course.
When family have done that over the years, this strong positive emotion becomes linked to the food itself, which is often why people love their mother's cooking so much, or their grandmother's cooking is another great example.
And I think probably even more common.
If you had a grandparent that was alive growing up, they maybe cooked for you and they put a lot of love into that food.
And you have that strong connection with the food that they cooked.
And I think that's beautiful.
But of course finally, we also have another reason for this comfort food, and that is a biological response.
When we look at different comfort foods from around the world, A lot of the popular options in lots of different cultures not just Western cultures are very high in fat or sugar, for example, too.
And this can make our brains also release chemicals that feel good.
So this is a quick boost to our dopamine and therefore our positive feeling of emotions.
That's not to say that all comfort food is unhealthy or high in fat or sugar, but there definitely is a trend that a lot of comfort foods are maybe not the healthiest.
They're very fatty or high in sugar or calories in some way or the other.
So it really is overall, a mix of memories and the present feeling of comfort that makes these foods so special and give us this feeling of comfort.
So I'm gonna give you a couple of examples of comfort food.
And I'll look mainly at English examples, because you guys know more about your own countries than I do.
So I'm going to look a little bit at the US and the UK, some English speaking countries that I would know about right.
So in the, I would say in every culture and country, comfort food can be different.
But the feeling that it gives us is universal.
It's something that we all feel.
So let's take a look at a few examples.
There are foods, I think, which now have become globalized.
They're all around the world and they can be a comfort in lots of different cultures, like pizza, for example, or a burger.
They're almost very Americanized.
They've been spread globally through fast food and and chain restaurants.
And for people in lots of cultures, they have these foods as a comfort food.
But let's look specifically first at the United States.
So besides mac and cheese, I would say from looking online, a lot of people from the US and Canada also said that a chicken noodle soup is a classic comfort food, especially when you're sick.
It reminds so many people of their mothers or grandmothers taking care of them.
And I would say even here in the UK, a chicken noodle soup or any type of maybe soup as well.
I associate with a time when I'm sick, because we don't often eat soup in this country as a regular dish.
It's usually for a time when you have a cold or a flu or are feeling a little bit under the weather and need more liquid.
It also here tends to be an older generation dish.
So a lot of grandparents would have cooked soup here.
Grandmothers in particular, growing up, they would cook soup and you would eat it.
In the UK I think the biggest comfort food for most people and I'm sure most of my fellow Brits other British people would agree on this is a Sunday roast, a traditional Sunday roast dinner.
And this is a dish that we usually have on Sundays with our families, and it consists it's made up of a roasted meat, usually chicken or beef.
Some families have, you know, ham or like some, pork or duck or even fancier stuff, but usually roasted chicken or roast beef potatoes vegetables, gravy and Yorkshire puddings as well.
If you don't know what those are, you can look them up online.
And this can be a really strong source of comfort because it reminds people of their family, family gatherings and that connection over the years.
It's also something stable and consistent because we have Sundays every week.
And for many families, including mine, Sunday dinner is something that we regularly have every Sunday.
And it then provides that feeling of safety and security and family too.
I think it's a great tradition and one that I would like to continue and carry on in my family as well.
Okay, so we are going to go to our listener spotlight for today.
My favorite part of the episode.
When we look at your answers to the questions that I give you guys today.
So first, before we read your answers, I want to remind you if you haven't checked out my new book yet.
The link is in the description below.
It's an ebook which teaches you phrasal verbs in English through short stories and exercises.
Phrasal verbs are so important in English and for sounding like a native speaker.
So if you want to really improve your English skills and your phrasal verb knowledge and use, check out my ebook.
In the description,
Of course, it also supports this project.
Okay, so in one of our previous episodes, not too long ago, I think about a week ago I asked what do you do to recharge your energy?
We were talking about introverts and extroverts.
People who get energy from socializing, so talking to other people, and people who lose it doing that, that need maybe time alone to get their energy back again.
If you haven't listened to that episode, go back and listen.
But anyway, I asked you guys, how do you recharge your energy?
And I had some great answers that I want to share today.
So the first answer I got was from Jairo, I hope I say your name correctly, from Columbia.
And they said, to recharge my energy, I enjoy playing video games.
It's my favorite hobby.
Also, I like to take my dog for a walk and do some pull-ups.
Those are great ways to recharge your energy.
I also love to sometimes play video games.
I love to exercise as well and go for walks.
So I agree with you with those methods and great ways to unwind and to recharge.
Excellent answer and very well written.
I had an answer from Maria, who's from Spain, and she said to recharge, I love to put on my headphones and just listen to music.
Calm music, sometimes even more energetic music, helps me to clear my mind and get energy back.
That's a great way to use sound and music for comfort and energy.
And actually, Maria, that is going to be part of my topic on this week's Patreon bonus episode.
So yeah, great, great comment.
And I agree, it's a fantastic way to recharge.
I had another comment, which was from Ahmed, who's from Egypt, and he said my favourite way to recharge is to simply sit with my cat.
He jumps on my lap and I just pet him.
His soft fur and purring really brings me comfort and makes me feel relaxed after a long day.
Thank you, Ames, for sharing such a sweet and simple comment about comfort and recharging.
It's a great answer and very well written as well.
Thank you to everyone that wrote in for this week's listener spotlight.
My next question for you for this week's listener spotlight is what is your comfort food and why?
What is your comfort food and why?
So think about that emotional connection, maybe why it's important to you, and tell me what that food is.
So what is your comfort food and why?
And I will select a few of the answers and read them out in a future episode of Easy English.
So It is true that many traditional comfort food dishes can be quite rich, maybe with a lot of sugar, fat or carbohydrates.
This is often why we feel that craving, that craving for them whenever we're stressed or sad, because it gives us dopamine, it gives us good emotions.
So it's important, of course, to enjoy your comfort food in moderation.
It's perfectly fine to eat your favorite dish that brings you comfort.
But the key is to balance it with other foods as well.
Sometimes we need that feeling of making and eating a special dish.
And that's great.
And the goal is the feeling of comfort, not necessarily to eat large amounts of unhealthy food.
So today we have explored the concept of comfort food.
Why certain dishes make you feel so good and how that connects with our memories and emotions, and also maybe, the type of food that we eat too.
We saw how these dishes provide a feeling of comfort across cultures, helping us to satisfy our cravings.
So look out for these key vocabulary that we covered in today's episode.
So comfort, memory, dish, craving and emotion.
Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the Easy English Podcast.
Remember to check out the links in the description and follow and subscribe if you're new.
And rate the podcast five stars if you enjoyed.
It always helps.
Thank you so much and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
Goodbye.
