Food fixes everything, doesn’t it?

This past week I was a little under the weather and one of my husband’s first reactions (albeit after “don’t give that to me”) was can I bring you some soup.  This started me thinking about the fact that, in my life at least, the first thing that we often think of when there is a problem is, “can I bring you food”.  When you really think about it there is little wonder that we are a society of emotional eaters when the concept of “comfort food” is such a big part of life.  The more I thought about this, the more examples came to mind.  If there is a death in the family, people bring food, we take our friends to dinner to cheer them up, if we get bad news we eat a large pizza… ok maybe that’s just me. 

But it doesn’t stop there.  What about the other side of the equation, we also eat to celebrate.  If we get good news we go out to eat, for birthday’s we cook special meals, marriages are celebrated by food, we take people to dinner to thank them and the list goes on.  We even use the idea of food to provoke emotional reactions in situations that are not about food at all. The self help book series “Chicken Soup for the Soul”, has sold over 100 million copies in 57 countries.  It’s not even about food and yet 100 million people apparently identify with the fact that chicken soup is comforting. My point here is that that we often read about people being emotional eaters but the society we live in feeds into that and practically forces you down that track.  This means that we really need to be aware of our food choices in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  Having said, food and food choices should never be a chore and food should always be a joy.  I am not a person who has ever subscribed to the “food is fuel” school of thought and I am not about start.  Great food need not be difficult and it need not always add pounds,  that said, there is always room for a little excess in life otherwise it all get’s too hard.

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