Why Is Cheese So Addicting?

cheese

Finals week is slowly approaching so it’s crunch time. And like many people I like to snack while I study. With that being said, I grabbed a box of cheez its and I started to notice something: I could not stop eating them. It seems like each cheez it was my last one, but I would soon catch my hand in the box reaching fro another one. They were addicting! It then dawned on me jow growing up I have always loved cheese! To me, there was a strong correlation between the cheez it and me wanting to eat more of them. I believe the cheez it had something in it that made me want to keep eating more. So like Andrew taught us in order to truly figure things out we must do our research.

So far my findings were strictly observational, fell victim to the file draw problem, and only had one subject(me). After being in class for weeks now anyone knows this is not enough info to start to draw conclusions. I knew I had to change that and draw conclusions from studies that were reliable and experimental with numbers and qualified scientists.

That’s when I came across the work of diligent scientists back in the 1980’s. In research conducted by Eli Hazum and his colleagues from from Wellcome Research Laborities , they found that milk produced by cows contained the highly addictive opiate chemical morphine. As we are all aware, milk is a key ingredient cheese. These scientist are inferring that this is one of the key ingredients that makes cheese so addictive to many.

The scientists also began to dig deeper and found more reasoning behind the addictive food product. The group of scientist conducting this study also found out that cheese contained the protein casein. When digested it is said that this protein turns into casomorphins that bring can bring about pleasurable sensations such as those of opiate. According to Neal Barnard, MD said, “Since cheese is processed to express out all the liquid, it’s an incredibly concentrated source of casomorphins—you might call it dairy crack.”

While all of this sounds good and makes sense I must be a scientist and question these scientific findings. The conclusions drawn from these scientists suggest that it is indeed the ingredients of the cheese that has me addicted. But what if instead it were me. What if a was biologically predisposed to enjoy cheese and cheez its in particular. When we look at this situation specifically it is safe to say that not EVERYONE is addicted to cheese or find it very enjoyable. So could it possibly be something in us that makes us want the cheese more.I believe it is safe to say that we can not automatically rule our reverse causation in this instance.

I start to analyze the study and begin wondering what else is in this “addictive” cheese and what are the other affects of these ingredients. A study in Russia came to the conclusion that the same addictive casomorphin found in cheese could possibly affect the development of a human infant in a negative way, “specifically in a manner that could cause autism.”

I also read that cheese is high in saturated fats and lots of cholesterol that could eventually lead to heart disease and other healthy complications such as diabetes. According to an article published by The New York Times, Americans consume a total of 33 pounds of cheese each year. “Reducing cheese and saturated fat consumption is something anyone can do to prevent heart disease, since ‘Unhealthy diets and lack of exercise may kill about 300,000 to 500,000 Americans each year.'”( http://www.care2.com/greenliving/cheese-contains-morphine.html#ixzz3KxYqXnGm) Must be hard to cut back on something that is very addicting wouldn’t you say?

All in all, I guess I finally got my answer as to why cheese seemed to be so addicting and also learned a bit more about what I’m actually eating. While the studies results kind of scare me and make me think twice about eating cheese I’m starting to wonder if I’m analyzing these studies thoroughly enough. I mean , high cholesterol and fat can be monitored by exercise and other healthy habits. Is cheese really the cause of high cholesterol or is it other factors that could attribute to this health woe? To me this will always been an open question until science can prove otherwise.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/cheese-contains-morphine.html

http://yumuniverse.com/addiction-to-cheese-is-real-thanks-to-casomorphins/

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-and-cholesterol/

http://livewell.jillianmichaels.com/cheese-make-fat-5330.html

http://www.livestrong.com/article/457061-can-eating-cheese-cause-weight-gain/

2 thoughts on “Why Is Cheese So Addicting?

  1. Megan Fleming

    I laughed out loud at the quote from Neal Barnard that called cheese “dairy crack.” Your initial conclusion that because you could not stop eating cheez-its, they were addicting seems to be a stretch. Perhaps it wasn’t what you were eating, maybe you were just hungry and therefore kept eating, or were eating out of boredom. If you only looked at yourself in an observational study, those confounding variables would discount your hypothesis that cheese is addicting. However, the study you analyzed by Eli Hazum tied in nicely and was very interesting. Unfortunately, I don’t think cheez-its really qualify as ‘cheese’ considering their main ingredient is enriched wheat flour. There are 293 mg of calcium in a serving of cheese, and no calcium in cheez-its. Therefore maybe your hypothesis should have looked at if crackers were addicting, instead of cheese.

  2. Abigail Charlotte Ventosa

    I found this article very interesting. Although I’m not addicted to cheese by any means, I would definitely classify myself as someone addicted to ice cream. You mentioned that milk is a key ingredient that causes the addictiveness of cheese, does that mean that all dairy products are addicting? After reading an article on freefromharm.com , I read that ice cream is just as addictive as cheese for the exact same reasons.

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