As the nights draw in and the weather turns chilly, comfort foods will be making a welcome return to many a British dinner table.And if you're a lazy cook, science has good news... top of the "comfort index" is beans on toast.
Neuropsychologists at the University of Sussex have been examining the "nurturing emotions" the food sets off by strapping electrodes to a group of volunteers' scalps and measuring their reaction to the smell, taste and colour of various dishes.
Using eight factors, such as how warming the food was and whether those happy childhood memories were triggered, the researchers calculated a formula which resulted in what they called a "Comfort Index".
Apparently simple ingredients and uniform colour are much more "comforting" to us humans than the more complex dishes such as curry.
In fact the highest scorers (after beans on toast obviously) were sausage and mash, tomato soup, chicken and mushroom pie and macaroni cheese.
Dr David Lewis, who conducted the research (commissioned by Heinz), told the Telegraph: "The simpler the aroma the more easily it can be interpreted and memorised, consequently the response and emotion towards it is more powerful and immediate.
"We can see this clearly in the findings that the types of smells people find comforting are simple ones associated with home cooking."
It seems mum's home cooking lives long in the comfort memory.
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