Chocolate, Pizza Linked To Eating Disorders And Addiction

University of Michigan graduate student of psychology, Erica Schulte, notes, “In a similar manner that drugs are processed to increase their addictive potential, this study provides insight that highly processed foods may be intentionally manufactured to be particularly rewarding through the addition of fat and refined carbohydrates, like white flour and sugar”. It was followed by favourites such as ice cream, French fries, pizza and cookies, Tech Times reported. All the researchers did was perform a statistical analysis of the different types of listed food and speculate as to why they might be more addictive than others.

Chocolate topped the list of foods that are most addictive.

The researchers themselves were uncomfortable with the “cheese is crack” headlines, and point out that their study found the opposite: people mostly struggle to control their intake of highly processed foods, not necessarily cheese.

If you’ve ever found yourself frantically demolishing a wheel of camembert on a Friday evening like a bear with blood-lust, then you might be relieved to discover that it’s not discipline that’s the issue, it’s addiction.

And the reason that cheese is especially addictive has something to do with a chemical component called casein.

Cheese contains the protein casein, which releases opiates called casomorphins as the cheese is digested.

Those researchers published their findings in PLoS ONE earlier this year, and wrote that “though evidence of “food addiction” continues to grow, no previous studies have yet examined which foods or food attributes are likely implicated in addictive-like eating”. “Processing was a large, positive predictor for whether a food was associated with problematic, addictive-like eating behaviors”.