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    Casein - Cheese More Addictive Than Chocolate

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    Brocke
    Cheese contains casein, a dairy protein that breaks down during digestion to release casomorphins, opioid compounds that are one-tenth as potent as morphine. The cheese-making process concentrates casein, making cheese more addictive. Studies found that most people can give up other foods like ice cream and burgers during restricted diets, but have difficulty stopping cheese cravings. The cheese industry spends $200 million annually researching and marketing to "cheese cravers," those most vulnerable to addiction, in order to trigger cravings and sell more cheese.

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    Casein - Cheese More Addictive Than Chocolate

    Uploaded by

    Brocke
    1K views2 pages
    Cheese contains casein, a dairy protein that breaks down during digestion to release casomorphins, opioid compounds that are one-tenth as potent as morphine. The cheese-making process concentrates casein, making cheese more addictive. Studies found that most people can give up other foods like ice cream and burgers during restricted diets, but have difficulty stopping cheese cravings. The cheese industry spends $200 million annually researching and marketing to "cheese cravers," those most vulnerable to addiction, in order to trigger cravings and sell more cheese.

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    Cheese contains casein, a dairy protein that breaks down during digestion to release casomorphins, opioid compounds that are one-tenth as potent as morphine. The cheese-making process concentrates casein, making cheese more addictive. Studies found that most people can give up other foods like ice cream and burgers during restricted diets, but have difficulty stopping cheese cravings. The cheese industry spends $200 million annually researching and marketing to "cheese cravers," those most vulnerable to addiction, in order to trigger cravings and sell more cheese.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    1K views2 pages

    Casein - Cheese More Addictive Than Chocolate

    Uploaded by

    Brocke
    Cheese contains casein, a dairy protein that breaks down during digestion to release casomorphins, opioid compounds that are one-tenth as potent as morphine. The cheese-making process concentrates casein, making cheese more addictive. Studies found that most people can give up other foods like ice cream and burgers during restricted diets, but have difficulty stopping cheese cravings. The cheese industry spends $200 million annually researching and marketing to "cheese cravers," those most vulnerable to addiction, in order to trigger cravings and sell more cheese.

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    Casein and Cheese More Addictive Than Chocolate?

    Of all the potentially addicting foods, cheese may be the most complex. In research 
    studies using vegan and vegetarian diets to control cholesterol or reduce body weight, 
    most participants soon forget the lure of ice cream, sour cream, and even burgers and 
    chicken. But for many people, the taste for cheese lingers on and on. Yes, 70 percent 
    of its calories may come from waist­augmenting fat, and, ounce for ounce, it may 
    harbor more cholesterol than a steak. But that cheese habit is tough to break. 

    Why is cheese so addicting? Certainly not because of its aroma, which is perilously 
    close to old socks. The first hint of a biochemical explanation came in 1981, when 
    scientists at Wellcome Research Laboratories in Research Triangle Park, N.C., found 
    a substance in dairy products that looked remarkably like morphine. After a complex 
    series of tests, they determined that, surprisingly enough, it actually was morphine. By 
    a fluke of nature, the enzymes that produce opiates are not confined to poppies ­­ they 
    also hide inside cows' livers. So traces of morphine can pass into the animal's 
    bloodstream and end up in milk and milk products. The amounts are far too small to 
    explain cheese's appeal. But nonetheless, the discovery led scientists on their search 
    for opiate compounds in dairy products. 

    And they found them. Opiates hide inside casein, the main dairy protein. As casein 
    molecules are digested, they break apart to release tiny opiate molecules, called 
    casomorphins. One of these compounds has about one­tenth the opiate strength of 
    morphine. The especially addicting power of cheese may be due to the fact that the 
    process of cheese­making removes water,lactose and whey proteins so that casein is 
    concentrated. Scientists are now trying to tease out whether these opiate molecules 
    work strictly within the digestive tract or whether they pass into the bloodstream and 
    reach the brain directly. 

    (some paragraphs about chocolate addiction snipped) 

    The cheese industry is miles ahead of them, having gone to great lengths to identify 
    people who are most vulnerable to addiction. It dubs them "cheese cravers," and 
    tracks their age, educational level and other demographics so as to target them with 
    marketing strategies that are tough to ignore. With a $200 million annual research and 
    marketing budget, the dairy industry is not content to have you just sprinkling a little 
    mozzarella on your salad. It is looking for those Americans who will eat it straight out 
    of the package, whatever the cost to their waistlines or cholesterol levels. 

    At a "Cheese Forum" held Dec. 5, 2000, Dick Cooper, the vice president of Cheese 
    Marketing for Dairy Management Inc., laid out the industry's scheme for identifying 
    potential addicts and keeping them hooked. In his slide presentation, which was 
    released to our organization under the Freedom of Information Act, he asked the 
    question, "What do we want our marketing program to do?" and then gave the answer: 
    "Trigger the cheese craving." He described how, in a partnership with the U.S. 
    Department of Agriculture, the dairy industry launched Wendy's Cheddar Lover's 
    Bacon Cheeseburger, which single­handedly pushed 2.25 million pounds of cheese 
    during the promotion period. That works out to 380 tons of fat and 1.2 tons of pure 
    cholesterol in the cheese alone. A similar promotion with Pizza Hut launched the
    "Ultimate Cheese Pizza," which added an entire pound of cheese to a single pizza and 
    sold five million pounds of it during a six­week promotion in 2000. The presentation 
    concluded with a cartoon of a playground slide with a large spider web woven to trap 
    children as they reached the bottom. The caption had one spider saying to another, "If 
    we pull this off, we'll eat like kings."

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