“Rose: Where are you going? Dorothy: To either get ice-cream or commit a felony. I’ll decide in the car.” – The Golden Girls

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Mmmm, comfort food! Just thinking the words can make us feel warm all over. Indulging in comfort food when life seems bleak or hard to handle is a part of the human condition. Comfort food connects with something deep inside us, soothing our emotions while tantalizing our tastebuds, calming us, putting us in the moment so that all we experience is the sweet sensation of what we are consuming. No matter how fleeting, comfort food makes us feel better, and we have come to rely on it when times are hard.

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Hot biscuits with melting butter; dense chewy muffins; pillowy, still warm, fresh-baked cookies; flaky pies with an unlimited choice of fillings; gooey mac and cheese; saucy pasta; fluffy potatoes; and rich creamy ice cream in every flavor under the sun . . . These are just some of the foods that spring to mind when we hear the words comfort food. Sugar, lots and lots of sugar, white flour, and butter are three of the ingredients in these and other comfort foods that make them so delicious, and yet, so unhealthy.

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To answer the first part of the question posed in the title of this article, “Yes, comfort food can be healthy.” To answer the second part, here are some of the ingredients that can make our favorite comfort foods better for us.

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Replacements for White Flour, Sugar, and Butter
Let’s look at those dense chewy muffins laden with white flour and white sugar. To make them healthy, but no less satisfying, consider using oat flour or almond flour, or a combination of both, instead of white flour. Instead of using sugar, consider using maple syrup, apple sauce, fruit purees, stevia, or dates. Oat flour or almond flour, or a combination of both, can also be used for baking cookies, as can stevia, coconut sugar, monk fruit extract, and maple syrup. To replace butter in baking, olive oil, nut butters, Greek yogurt, and coconut oil are healthy options. Fluffy pie crust can also be achieved with coconut oil and almond flour, and perfect biscuits come together with whole-wheat flour and Greek yogurt.

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Replacements for Pasta and Potatoes
I love mashed potatoes. But there is a dish I love even more. It has a similar satisfying texture and flavor, but it doesn’t have the starch. This wonder dish is mashed cauliflower. Because you steam the cauliflower before mashing it, you don’t lose the nutrients.  It’s super simple to make and much healthier than mashed potatoes. I add parmesan cheese and fresh garlic, along with salt and pepper, to add flavor. Instead of butter, use low-fat sour cream and olive oil. It is the perfect side dish for any meal. Pasta doesn’t need to be made with wheat. Chick pea pasta and quinoa pasta can easily be used in our favorite pasta dishes. Fibre-rich Japanese Shirataki noodles assist with digestion and can be used in many noodle-based Asian dishes, in Italian American pasta dishes, in noodle salads, and in soups.

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Replacements for Regular Ice Cream
I’m sure Dorothy wouldn’t approve, but there are frozen desserts that are just as delicious as regular ice cream. They are also just as effective at curing comfort food cravings. Low-fat ice cream is one. Lower in milk fat, it comes in a variety of flavors and forms, such as ice cream sandwiches. Dairy Queen’s soft serve ice cream is also lower in milk fat. Because frozen yogurt is made from yogurt and not cream, it has less fat and fewer calories than ice cream. However, sugar content varies among brands, so it’s important to read the labels.

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Comfort food as a concept—food that has a sentimental or nostalgic feel, which is eaten when we are feeling low—will never change. What we can change about it is the ingredients in it that tend to make it unhealthy. By doing so, the comfort food we eat in the future may continue to make us feel better once we’ve digested it, rather than make us feel guilty for having indulged in it.