Science says: Cheese is very addictive

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: Science says: cheese is very addictive.

Certain substances in cheese stimulate the part of your brain that is also triggered by addiction. This seems to be the scientific evidence that cheese is addictive, just like alcohol or drugs. Can't stay away from a cheese platter ? This is the explanation.

Research at the University of Michigan proves that cheese contains a substance that works just like nicotine, caffeine, or even opiates like cocaine and heroin. The researchers discovered that this substance stimulates the same parts of your brain as opiates. That explains the delightful feeling when aged cheese crumbles in your mouth or a soft piece of brie slides down your throat. Ah…

Just like yogurt, but better
The culprit: casein. It's also found in milk and yogurt, but in much lower doses. For one kilogram of cheese, ten liters of milk are used, so the amount of casein in cheese is ten times higher than in your coffee with milk or moon milk. Ten times as addictive too.

Pizza is irresistible
The research was conducted by asking five hundred students about the food they really can't resist. Very high on that list: pizza. Especially pizzas that were dripping with cheese were irresistible to the students. Other cheese snacks also scored very high in the research.

Treating it like a drug addiction
According to the researchers, this is a groundbreaking insight. ‘Maybe we need to approach people who want to lose weight differently,’ says Nicole Avena. ‘It's not helpful to just hear: stop eating. We need to tackle it like we treat a drug addiction.’ Her co-author Erica Schultz sees in the research results a reason to address the marketing around cheese. ‘Other guidelines are obvious,’ she says. ‘Maybe we shouldn't offer such addictive products to children, for example.’

Exporting addictive goods
Good to know: the average Dutch person eats 17 kilograms of cheese per year. But other Europeans are not much better: in Sweden, 19 kilograms of cheese per person is consumed, and in Italy, they consume almost 22 kilograms of cheese per person each year. Yes, no wonder: gorgonzola, ricotta, mozzarella, mascarpone, so delicious! We are champions in exporting our addictive specialty all over the world: an average of 650 million kilograms of cheese is exported.

Source: Evening Standard