14 DAY TRIAL // Here is a piece of news that might make the ice cream and the chocolate industry crash and burn: researchers now claim that there is no such thing as comfort foods, and that the idea that eating one treat or another can boost a person's mood is no more and no less than a myth.
The scientists making these claims say that they reached the conclusion that comfort foods are a myth after carrying out a series of experiments with the help of several volunteers.
These volunteers were all made to watch a video that was supposed to make them feel sad, angry or scared. The video lasted for about 20 minutes, and the people who took part in this research project got to watch it several times.
As detailed by Live Science, the volunteers were asked to comment on their state of mind both immediately after the video ended, and about 3 minutes later. During this time, some got to feast on a comfort food of their choice or a food that appealed to them.
Other volunteers were not this lucky and only got to chew on a granola bar. Others had it even worse, meaning that the researchers did not give them any food and instead allowed them to deal with their negative feelings on their own.
Interestingly enough, the specialists carrying out these experiments say that, regardless of what they ate during the three minutes after having watched the video, the volunteers all experienced an improvement in their mood.
“We were incredibility surprised by those results. Whether it's your comfort food, or it’s a granola bar, or if you eat nothing at all, you will eventually feel better. Basically, comfort food can't speed up that healing process,” says specialist Heather Scherschel Wagner with the University of Minnesota.
Heather Scherschel and fellow researchers believe that, should more people be made aware of the findings of this investigation and come to terms with the fact that ice cream, chocolate, pizza and other similar dishes do not a treatment for bad mood make, public health would have a lot to gain.
“People can develop these very unhealthy habits, where they just immediately reach for these yummy foods when they feel sad. If people find that they do actually feel better without eating comfort foods, that might stop this unhealthy pattern of behavior,” the specialist explains.
The problem is that, since these experiments were carried out in laboratory conditions, it might be that their findings are not all that reliable. This is because people who carry on with their daily routine are often exposed to a wide variety of stressors that the study did not take into consideration.