Caving into my cravings: my go-to comfort snacks

If you waltz into my room, there’s a high possibility that my desk is covered with snacks.

The comfort snacks I resort to in every situation — post-school misery, late night cravings, vacation jetlag struggles — you name it.

It’s 3 a.m. and I have a decision to make: Do I attempt to quell my cravings with sleep, or make the arduous journey to the kitchen for snacks? Despite knowing that I will sorely regret grabbing a bite in the morning, I always choose the less healthy and more rewarding option — no matter the time or place, I can always rely on food as a guaranteed source of happiness to lift my spirits.

Here is my nightly routine:

Step 1: Attempt to noiselessly tiptoe to the living room, painstakingly navigating around toe-stubbing furniture.

Step 2: Open the snack cabinet and pray no plastic-wrapped snacks make expedition-sabotaging noises in the dead of night.

Step 3: Speedily run to the comfort of my room and enjoy my snack.

My snack of choice is always Welch’s bite-size chewy gummies, my absolute go-to snack at times like these. I have a little handcrafted paper origami box on my desk — a DIY “trash can” — which is always filled to the brim with Welch’s wrappers, concrete evidence of evenings spent munching away at these delicious gummies.

The small size of the packs makes me feel less guilty about inhaling them as a “light snack,” though usually I need at least two packs to satisfy my cravings. Whatever they put in this food is dangerously addictive, because I could devour the entire box and still want more. From the 40-pack we bought from Safeway, I can shamelessly admit to eating at least 35 of those packs in a single month.

On other occasions when I’m deep in the blues after bombing a test, or mentally ready to bask in said blues during a long night of studying, I’ll also whip up a larger snack, sometimes to go along with the gummies. Depending on my hot or cold cravings, I’ll either go with ramen or ice cream.

The ramen I choose typically depends on my mood — I like microwaved non-spicy Maruchan chicken cup noodles for sleep deprivation, microwaved Nongshim spicy kimchi flavor for post-test misery and Nongshim black noodle soup with boiled water (my Roman Empire) when I’m feeling ambitious.

Following school hours, I tend to crave ice cream over all else. I’ll eat just about any flavor (except matcha, sorry not sorry), especially the ones that come in pints — my favorites include Häagen-Dazs’ classic Vanilla, Marion Crêpes’ Sesame and Baskin-Robbins’ Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

When I’m away from school or home, however, my cravings change. The only contender for vacation snacks (when I’m not dining at a fancy restaurant or taste-testing cultural treats) is simple, plain bread — people often underestimate its power.

Prior to a trip, I make sure to pack a wide variety of breads to spice things up: King’s Hawaiian sliced Hawaiian sweet bread, Pan Pan bread roll cream and Da Li Yuan soft French bread. The Pan Pan bread roll cream and Da Li Yuan soft French bread are my top picks, and it’s no surprise that they come from the same superior Asian brand.

Bread especially comes in handy when dealing with my unbearably bad jet lag. No matter how bored and sleep-deprived I feel during or after my flights, digging into my “snackpack” (backpack for snacks) and finding a bread that perfectly complements my cravings never fails to give me a dopamine high. Another plus about bread is that it gives me the illusion that I’m eating healthy.

I also want to give a shout-out to school vending machine snacks — I cannot forget the countless times they have saved my taste buds from experiencing unpleasant school lunches, especially my trustworthy saviors Cheez-Its and Rice Krispies. For some reason, the ones refrigerated in the vending machines always taste better than store-bought packs. Admittedly, I always feel a tiny shred of guilt because of how overpriced they are, but I gaslight myself, saying that it’s worth the “refrigerated” feeling of the snack. They hit differently since I’m always drained and on the verge of starvation at school, so the energy boost feels enhanced by a thousand times.

At any time of day, I always foolishly overlook the crazy sodium, sugar, gluten and wild nutritional ratios in these snacks, reminding myself that it’s worth a shred of extra happiness.