Comfort Food Without the Guilt

Lighter versions satisfy your cravings for fewer calories

By Elaine Magee, MPH, RD
WebMD Weight Loss Clinic - Expert Column

Reviewed by Kathleen M. Zelman, MPH, RD, LD

Piping-hot macaroni and cheese with a crunchy golden-brown crust; chewy, gooey chocolate-chip cookies warm from the oven; or a big mound of fluffy white mashed potatoes with a pool of melted butter dripping down the side -- who doesn't like comfort food?

Comfort foods soothe and nurture us, but they usually come with a steep nutritional price tag: They're generally high in fat, saturated fat, calories, and, sometimes, sugar.

So is the answer to simply resist comforting ourselves with these foods we crave? Not if you listen to Rebecca Reeves, DrPH, RD, an obesity researcher at Baylor College of Medicine.

"I do not believe we should deny ourselves these foods which we have emotional attachments to," says Reeves. "If we do deprive ourselves, we'll just want to eat more and more."

Instead, Reeves suggests that we indulge in our comfort foods in moderation -- especially when these foods are high in calories and fat.

2 Ways Comfort Foods Help

Can any good come from eating comfort foods? You bet! There are at least two ways in which comfort foods can actually help your body:

Many popular comfort foods offer significant nutritional value, especially when they've been made over to be lower in fat and sugar and higher in fiber and other important nutrients. Healthful comfort food options include higher-fiber breads, lean meats, and stews and casseroles containing vegetables.

One study found some evidence that comfort foods really do function as stress reducers. Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco subjected rats to chronic stress over a few days and discovered that these rats preferred to eat sugar and fat to ordinary chow. (Who knew that rats would want the same types of foods when they're stressed out that we do!) And when the rats ate sugar and fat, their brains produced less stress-related hormones.

"However, comfort foods are addictive," notes one of the UCSF researchers, Mary Dallman, PhD. "And if eating them becomes a habit after the stress is over, then there is a downside, because these extra calories are primarily directed into the unhealthy abdominal fat pads."

Sound like anyone you know?

4 Ways to Enjoy Comfort Food Without Guilt

It is possible to comfort yourself without consuming all those extra calories and fat. Here are four tips for enjoying comfort food without doing a number on your diet:

Whenever possible, prepare a version of your comfort food that's lower in calories, fat, sodium, and sugar. (I've written a new cookbook, Comfort Food Makeovers, that's full of these nutritionally fine-tuned recipes; look for it at your favorite online bookstore.)
Eat your comfort food when you're truly hungry, and stop eating when you're comfortable -- not stuffed.
To make it less likely that you're eating for emotional reasons, enjoy your comfort food as part of a regular meal and not as a snack eaten on impulse.
Pump up the nutritional volume on your savory comfort foods by adding vegetables or beans when possible. For sweet comfort foods, add more fruit, decrease the sugar (or use half sugar substitute), reduce the fat ingredient down a third or so, and switch half of the flour to whole wheat when you can.