Hunger is listed as an emotion in Tiffany Watt Smith’s work The book of human emotions. Smith argues that, “Food can be a way of bolstering ourselves against an oncoming stress, or showing some kindness to ourselves when we feel overlooked.” Emotions and eating are often (if not always) connected.

“The Baining people of Papua new Guinea take for granted this close connection between physical hunger and the desire to be cared about properly. So much so that their word for hunger (anaingi or aisicki) means both a rumbling belly and the fear that you have been abandonded. In a society where food binds people together, creating friends out of strangers, to be left hungry is to also feel stranded and alone.”

Tiffany Watt Smith