Are Oreos the New Cocaine?
Have you ever eaten an Oreo? And then had another one? And then another one? And then another one? Well if you have, you can admit it. I have gotten to the point where I don’t let myself have one Oreo because I know if I do, it will be a domino effect and “just one Oreo” will become “just five Oreos”.
It has always been easy to blame it on our bodies’ cravings since we crave high fat and high sugar foods. What better food to fulfill those cravings than a cookie?
However, according to a recent study conducted at Connecticut College, it has been found that Oreos can be as addictive as cocaine!
Ross Tucker, a writer for Yahoo News reporting on this discovery, explained how researchers in the department of Neuroscience at Connecticut College conducted their experiment. Most of you might be familiar with the classic rat and maze chase where researchers put certain substances at the end of the maze and see how quickly the rats can get through the maze to retrieve their prize. Researchers at Connecticut College conducted a similar research design where they had Oreos offered at the end of one side of the maze and rice cakes offered at the end of the other side of the maze. In the next evaluation one group of rats were given Cocaine injections and the other side, those rats were given a shot of saline. The results showed that the rats spent more time on the Oreo side, as did the rats in the other group on the Cocaine side.
Of course there is always some sort of discussion of error or bias in the results. As humans (and apparently rats) most of us would prefer Oreos over rice cakes, which may be why the rats spent so much more time on the Oreo side. But there is also a lot of truth in this experiment. The Oreo side kept the rats wanting more (addicting) whereas the rats on the side of rice cakes were not as interested.
Moral of the story? Maybe you don’t have to feel so bad about yourself the next time you can’t stop yourself after having one Oreo. If you are going through an addiction what better addiction than two chocolate cookies with white creamy filling in between them?
source: http://news.yahoo.com/oreos-th…