10 Foods For Depressed People

1. Cinnabon

Perhaps the seminal depression food, Letting Go and eating a Cinnabon is one of the most saturated-fat- and chemically-induced consolations you can achieve after your self-loathing has reached incalculable highs. Of particular importance here is the frosting, which comes in a small container on the side – ask for two or three to achieve what will seem, at the time, like an unbearable loop of comfort/ self-disgust that you cannot stop consciously processing. Additional points can be added if you consume the Cinnabon at a mall location, at 9:45 p.m. – 15 minutes before it closes – alone in the food court save for an obese counterpart in a stained blue t-shirt, basketball shorts and a socks/ thongs combo idly eating Panda Express at a table some twenty feet away from you, which you had briefly considered but had mentally said “Fuck it, I’m just going to get a Cinnabon.” The irony that your benchmark for “health” is Panda Express in this situation does not escape you.

Stats
Ave. consumption time: 10 minutes
Calories from fat: 320
Total calories: 880
Price: ~$4
Average comfort received: Very high

2. A giant burrito-like thing from your local Mexican fast food-ish joint with extra meat and sour cream

© BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes one is so depressed that her aspirations lie simply in attaining a large mass of shredded pork, pinto beans, sour cream and shredded iceberg lettuce wrapped in a paper-thin tortilla, covered in grated cheese and various sauces, served with an extra large Coke and perhaps chips and salsa. Upon acquisition of such sustenance, the depressed person can moan softly through her nose as she slowly devours this seminal Loaf of Mexico, if you will, and takes an incredibly somber comfort in the massive flesh/ fat/ caloric intake that her burrito-thing has to offer. For maximum consolation, order extra meat and sour cream; in fact, just order the extra meat to come on the side and eat it with a spoon between mouthfuls of the burrito thing. Eat it at home, and save the last bite for when you wake up in the middle of the night after passing out on the couch with all the lights on.

Ave. consumption time: 20 minutes
Calories from fat: 700 [author’s assumption]
Total calories: 1300 [author’s assumption]
Price: ~$7
Average comfort received: Very high

3. A large amount of processed “cheese” slices

A large amount of processed “cheese” slices can be purchased at Costco or Wal-Mart relatively inexpensively and is indeed one of the cheapest and most efficient ways to deliver industrial grade comfort/ cholesterol straight to the lining of your arteries and larger veins as you cry softly into the mildewy couch you found on Craigslist for free last month, in front of the 80’s-style big screen TV showing reruns of Frasier. Additionally, the packaging of processed “cheese” slices are clean and easy to handle, making it easier to forget that you’re pathetically gorging on food because your life sucks so bad and you’ve honestly seen no reason to get out of bed at all four out of the past five mornings. The only downside to using processed “cheese” slices while depressed is that it can lead to high amounts of shame, as you’re faced with hundreds of individual wrappers in a disgusting, greasy pile on your roach-laden coffee table the next day.

Stats
Ave. consumption time: 10 minutes to an hour, depending on the individual
Calories from fat: 200 – 400 [author’s assumption]
Total calories: 600 – 1200 (10 – 20 slices)
Price: ~$4 – $6
Average comfort received: Very high

4. Chili Cheese Dog From 7-11

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGXQWd-0wEw&w=575&h=390%5D

I couldn’t find a fair use picture of a “real” 7-11 chili cheese dog, so let me explain what this “hot dog” actually is when you buy it from a 7-11. Resembling a neon orange and bright red puddle of chunky vomit, the 7-11 chili cheese dog is equal parts “cheese” sauce, oddly smelling “chili,” a hot dog bun and a hot dog. Both the “cheese” and the “chili” are applied – at least in some locations – to the hot dog by two different machines which excrete the substances via spray nozzles; while applying the “chili” you are guaranteed to recognize in both sight and sound the resemblance between the “chili” machine’s operation and bloody explosive diarrhea. Both toppings are liquidy enough to immediately turn your bun into a quickly dissolving pile of slop, and what you end up stuffing into your face between heavy groans of discomfort, dissatisfaction and Giving In after all this is basically a disgusting, savory, chemically-congealed stew of depressing ass saturated fat. Excellent fare if you’re currently hating yourself.

Ave. consumption time: 10 minutes
Calories from fat: 310
Total calories: 360
Price: ~$3
Average comfort received: Medium as comfort is actively deflected by how disgusting the thing looks

5. Kentucky Fried Chicken

© BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons

By stepping inside a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, it’s no secret that you’re feeling terrible and jesus, you hate yourself so much right now, and so naturally, anything one might order here is great food for the eternally self-loathing individual. The fried chicken – procured from billions of genetic mutant birds who’ve had their beaks cut off and live their entire miserable lives inside a cage no wider than a piece of A1-sized paper, and who serve as a metaphor for your own existentially fucked first world situation – is served fresh from the heat lamps with a side of pureed potato-stuff and brown “gravy.” Indeed, watching an individual eat KFC, one can simply feel the simultaneous self-loathing and gluttony permeating the atmosphere around them. Excellent fare for the depressed individual.

Stats
Ave. consumption time: 20 minutes, depending on size of order
Calories from fat: ~300
Total calories: ~700
Price: ~$6
Average comfort received: Very high, very greasy

I am the co-publisher of Thought Catalog. Follow me on Twitter. I also use a pen name called Holden Desalles.

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