It's good to know there's a real reason behind you ordering double-cheese Margarita pizzas.
When you get that judgey look from the delivery driver, you can officially tell him it's an addiction thanks to a new study by the University of Michigan. The study looked at various types of foods to determine which was the most addictive and shared characteristics with drugs of abuse, i.e. high dose and rapid rate of absorption.
120 participants took part in the Yale Food Addiction Scale followed by sampling 35 dishes for the study. It found that cheese, and specifically pizza, was the most addictive food out there and it's all down to a protein called Casein.
Casein is found in most dairy products, but only in trace amounts. In cheese, it's way more concentrated because it uses 10 pounds of whole milk to make one pound of cheese. So, throwing a whole rake of cheesy goodness of pizza, it's going to be bad. Not only that, when the protein breaks down during digestion, it releases opiates called casomorphins which affect your dopamine receptors.
Yes, it's basically like smoking or drinking. Sort of.
Now go get that cheesy fix, you junkie.
Via NCBI
