One man's comfort food is another man's garbage. You know what an example of 'comfort food' to me might be? A bowl of split pea or minestrone soup...slowly simmering. These Americans are just grabbing and gobbling what's readily available. It's just fast calories. Unfortunately, fast calories are the least healthful calories. Then they sock it full of flavor enhancers, salt, fat, and sugar. It's partly culturally determined, but mostly just modern capitalism which gets the people to associate this food with comfort. When you stop to consider the long term effects on health, there's nothing comforting about this food.