How do you deal with emotional eating?

Girl i'm right there with you.lol. I've found that finding out why I emotionally eat has helped me. For me it's because growing up we didn't have a lot of food. Now as an adult I want to eat what I want when I want. When i'm counting calories the graving hit me harder. Especially sweets (which I usually never crave). So i'll drink a bottle of water with some mio flavoring in there to make it sweetsweet. And that helps satisfy my craving. Or if i'm just bored and find myself wanting to eat i'll munch on popcorn. It makes me feel like i'm eating more than I am. But I haven't found a 100% thing that works it's a constant struggle. Just stop when you get to the fridge or pantry and think about it. Ask yourself am I just bored and want to eat or am I having a craving. My everyday struggle issoda. I stopped drinking it and it's been really hard. Lol. Good luck.

P.S. it also helps me when I eat a good protein packed breakfast.

The absolutely best thing I did for emotional eating was doing yoga first with a DVD and then in a class. It teaches you to listen to your body. And it relaxes you so you do not have that kind of eating.

It's just a neurochemical problem albeit a difficult one to solve. As you've said you were taught that food is not simply nourishment for the body, but love, good things, pleasure, happiness and so on. There's a substance called dopamine which has a key role in the so called "reward system" of our brain. When something gives us pleasure dopamine is released, but too many and too prolonged stimuli result in an addictive behaviour because our brain responds less and less to the overabundant dopamine release so we start a vicious circle where we constantly crave foods (or whatever started the problem) in order to increase dopamine. All this is identical in all kind of addiction: food, alcohol, drugs, sex, pathological gambling,etc.
I've had the same problem of yours and I've solved it by taking tyrosine which is a susbtance normally occuring in food that our body needs to make dopamine. By increasing dopamine without using food I broke that bad habit very easily because I severed the link between food and pleasure. I sort of retrained my brain not to consider food as a source of abnormal pleasure. I enjoy good meals but with moderation, as a normal person would do.
Other ways to increase dopamine is physical activity, but only if it's perceived as pleasurable. Going to the gym and hating it will do no good to you. A more long term solution is psychotherapy which can be most effective provided you are lucky to find the right person.