I’m kind of in a snarky mood as I write this and that started me thinking about comfort food.  I’m guessing almost everyone has a comfort food, the food that has the taste of home, or which just satisfies some craving in a way that no other food does.  I’m also guessing that most comfort foods aren’t terribly nutritionally sound.   Comfort food, after all, isn’t about being healthy or being thin, it’s about being comforted.

I’ve found I have two types of comfort food.  One type is the meals that I ate when I was a kid.  Beef stew and biscuts.  A big pot of chicken noodle or beef barley soup.  Pot roast.  These are meals I remember my Mom making, and almost all of them have a specific memory attached.  Beef stew was a Winter meal, something filling to warm you when it was cold out.  Soup was our Sunday meal.  A big pot sat on the stove and bread warmed in the oven while everyone watched football.  Supper was whenever you wanted it and the pot of soup seemed bottomless, there was always enough for one more bowl.  Pot roast was a family gathering meal, with tender flavorful potatoes and carrots and lovely rich gravy.   Food was an occasion, and certain meals went with certain times.  To this day, there are some foods that only seem right when eaten in certain circumstances.

The other type of comfort food is the type that simply satisfies some craving for me.  Sometimes it is something sweet.  I also have a great affection for cheesy, greasy food.  Nachos are a particular favorite,  as is Idaho pizza.  There’s just something about the combination of flavors and textures that works for me.  I’m not sure what it is, but for me those foods are fun and uniquely satisfying.  They provide a sense of fulfillment that other foods just don’t give me.

When we start working to lose weight, one of the first things that often goes is all the foods that give us comfort.  While I fully applaud the efforts to eat healthy, and firmly agree that nutrition should be considered and eating wisely should be pursued, I also think there’s a place for the foods that fill that empty space that has nothing to do with hunger.  There should be room for the comfort foods, and they should be eaten without guilt or remorse, but in moderation.  Whether we like it or not, food is often about comfort, and that’s not entirely a bad thing.  If we can accept that, and not beat ourselves up about it, eating well becomes that much easier.

I took a little hiatus from this blog because I needed to examine some of my attitudes.  I also hit a bit of a weight loss plateau and that took a bit of a toll on my resolve.  I felt like I was working as hard as I ever had and I wasn’t getting the desired results.  Suddenly this whole weight loss thing was becoming deadly serious again.  I needed to take some time away to examine my attitudes and figure out how to get my head back in the right space.

One of the things I realized, while I was examining my attitudes, was one simple and pretty shocking, at least for me, fact:  food isn’t fun any more.

I’ve always had kind of a love affair with food.  I enjoy cooking and am pretty good at it.  I could anticipate a great dining out experience for days, contemplating what I’d have, anticipating how marvelous it would be.  I loved the tastes and textures of food and the how voluptuous and sensual a meal could be.  I loved the simple warmth of a bowl of beef stew and the cheesy goodness of an omelet.  I love the diner breakfast and the gourmet restaurant dinner and everything in between.  Food had a lot of roles in my life, and one of them was to be fun.

Gradually, however, as health and weight issues have occurred, food stopped being fun and became work.  First I had to worry if I was eating too much.  Then I had to count calories.  Then I had to worry about sodium and fiber and sugar.  Everything became about counting and measuring and obsessing and planning.  Eating wasn’t an enjoyable experience anymore, it had become more like an algebra equation or a chemistry experiment.  There were days when I almost wished I could have some sort of science fiction food pill that would fill me up without me having to eat anything at all.

In my past weight loss attempts, right about now is when I would say the hell with it and give up.  I don’t want to measure and weigh and obsess.  I don’t want my meals to be about everything but flavor and pleasure.  I do want to be healthy and I do want to be thin, but I also want to believe that I can be both those things while having nutritional  food I enjoy.  Those goals just can’t be mutually exclusive.

Since I control my attitude, and my progress toward my goals, I’ve decided it is up to me to make food fun again.  One of the ways I’m going to do that is with this blog.  I’m starting a series here called Fun Food Friday.  Every Friday I’ll discuss some aspect of how to make food fun.  Maybe it will be a recipe.  I might discuss setting up a food theme party.  Maybe I’ll talk about table decorations, or my favorite food from when I was a kid.  The idea is to take food out of the drudgery category and make it a joyous part of my life again.

I hope you’ll join me for Fun Food Friday.  After all part of the fun of food is sharing it with others.