Abstract:

Food choice and consumption is relevant to many scientific fields such as economics, anthropology, sociology, and psychology. The choice of comfort food, which is the subject of the study, can be associated with all of these areas, but it has a strong relationship with psychological and cultural issues. Comfort food; In general, it is called as foods that provide psychological comfort to individuals in the literature. This study aims to investigate the factors that affect the comfort food selection of individuals living in Turkey, the meaning of comfort food for individuals, and the effects of comfort food consumption on the individual. The data was collected via the online interview form and 248 people were reached. This data has been reviewed on 5 main topics: The relationship between food and emotion, the concept of comfort food, the most preferred comfort foods, comfort food consumption behaviors, and comfort factors affecting food preferences. According to the findings, it is observed that individuals define comfort food as good food, and in the case of a negative and/or positive feeling, they consume comfort food. In both cases of emotion, it has been found that the least preferred group is fish and water products while choosing chocolate and sugar-content foods such as dessert. In addition, it has been concluded that the taste of the individual's comfort foods has been emphasized among the factors that affect comfort food preference while most positive emotions, home, and lonely consumption are achieved.

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