According to studies, around three billion pizzas are sold in the United States alone annually, and surprisingly, kids ages three to 11 prefers pizza versus other food groups for their lunch and dinner, and pepperoni is the number one topping for their pizza and it also made up of the 36 percent of all the pizza orders. In total, the United States consumed at least 251, 770,000 pounds of pizza in just a year.
Speaking of comfort food, is pizza a comfort food? In this article, let us find out why this dish that originated in Italy has captured the hearts of millions of people around the world and why should it be included on the list of the ultimate comfort foods.
Just a brief description of what truly a comfort food is. According to its proper description, comfort food is a food that gives a person a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone or someplace that is very memorable or comforting to them or there has been a comfortable feeling. Comfort food can easily be distinguished to be high in calories, carbohydrate level and it is easy to prepare and cook and the nostalgic effect of the food to a person may have been applied to a specific culture.
How does comfort food makes you feel comfortable?
So why does high caloric food give us that nostalgic feeling and comfort? If you based it scientifically, high caloric food, especially the sweet and salty types of food like chocolates, ice cream and most of all pizza triggers the reward system in our brain that gives us a very distinct pleasure.
No wonder pizza is ranked the number one comfort food in the United States because if you base it with science, pizza is equally salty, fatty and sometimes have a sweet sensation because of the different ingredients that are put into it. A lot of people according to studies turn to food as their source of comfort, and even you, the reader would surely order a box of freshly baked pepperoni pizza when you feel sad or just came home from a tiring day at work.
Pizza can be a perfect match for different recreational activities like watching your favorite television show or just want to hang around with your buddies during a weekend.
Surveys
A 53-percent of Americans said that they binge eat when they are experiencing stress while around 70 percent said that they resort to eating comfort food if they feel sad or going through tough and depressing times, and their favorite comfort food is pizza. In a survey that involved around 2,000 adults, pizza led as much as 15 percent compared to other food choices such as burgers and ice cream and was selected by most of the people that include their demographical information like gender, region, and generation which denied other comfort foods to topple pizza.
However, pizza might be considered as the ultimate comfort food, but not the top choice for all situations, like for instance, if a person is sick, for sure they would choose a hot bowl of chicken soup than a slice of pizza while for special occasions, people prefer to sink their teeth in steaks and lobsters.
Pizza, on the other hand, got a huge lead when it comes to claiming the throne as the ultimate comfort food when people are having stress, having a bad day or depressed.
Pizza, being the best comfort food out there would surely make its Italian originators proud, but let us remember that each country has its own version of comfort food that for them is better than pizza, so it is better to respect it after all.
