When I hear people talking about “comfort food” it’s usually talking about simple (easy to prepare), high-carbohydrate foods with balanced proteins like mac & cheese, spaghetti & meatballs, pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, etc. The stuff you’d feed to children with unsophisticated palettes and an unending desire for calories and protein.
You also say an "unednding desire for calories and protein". *Protein?" Where? Even with metaballs you're not really eating that much meat (aka protein). Did you mean fat?
It's kind of a weird take overall. Ice cream clearly has huge cultural significance in the US as a comfort food.
Just a quick look-up online—a 50g serving of ice cream has something like 1.6g lactose. The same amount of cheddar has around 0.05g lactose, and mozarella has around 0.03g. That’s like a factor of 30x-50x.
This explains why even people who don’t think they are lactose intolerant still have digestive problems when they eat ice cream, but have no problems with cheese.
Ice cream may be culturally significant, I just haven’t heard it called a comfort food before.
I’m also a bit confused about the protein comment. Go read the nutritional facts for cheese some time. Cheddar is about 1/4 protein by mass.
https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/328637/n...
That's strange, a famous pop cliché is "crying eating icecream from the tub watching movies on the couch".
Cheese is very high in protein. It's basically concentrated milk. Obviously not lactose free though.
> mac & cheese
> pizza
> grilled cheese sandwiches
I think I have some bad news for you about where cheese comes from…
Ice cream has something like 50x as much lactose, by weight, as mozarella cheese. That’s why people who are lactose intolerant often have no problems eating cheeses, or at least certain cheeses in limited quantities. However, even people who think that they’re not lactose intolerant have digestive problems after eating ice cream—it turns out that it’s quite common for people to have some degree of lactose intolerance and be unaware of it.
> "bad news" for someone who obviously can't eat ice cream but knows they have no problem with mac and cheese
(sounds almost like gpt but ithink even a robot ought to pick that up..)
Turns out the world is full of nuance. But generally speaking, humans with lactose intolerance will have trouble enjoying the consumption of dairy-based products... Including - you guessed it! Cheese!
Certainly, some hard cheeses are lower in lactose. But that which constitutes Mac & Cheese? Oof.
Perhaps that's why it's comforting? Reminds you of a simpler time, dad taking you out for ice cream on a summer day.
When I’m in the UK, bangers and mash. In Central Europe some cutlet and sauerkraut.
This is also because I ate it with my grandparents and they probably enjoyed it from the war when meat was scarce and it was hard to get food from other lands. Like you say, a simpler time.
1. Going out for icecream.
2. Pancakes at home on the weekend.
Of course, non-food related experiences I hope to add up to much more.