It has been more than a decade since the astonishing news came out: Oreo cookies are addictive — to a rat, anyway. Some critics picked at this minor detail, but let’s face it, who are we kidding here? Everybody already suspected that the classic, consummate cookies can be equally addictive to a human. Each publication treated the revelation in its own way. A prominent business-oriented website said,

The “pleasure center” of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, apparently gets just as activated in response to Oreos as it does to cocaine and morphine, which could actually have some major public health implications.

Gee, Forbes, d’ya think? Public health implications, like, for instance, a virtual epidemic of obesity?

At Reason.com, Jacob Sullam applied a slant, noting that with equal truth the headline could have been phrased, “Research Shows That Heroin and Cocaine Are No More Addictive Than Oreos,” and went on to assert,

Putting it that way would have raised some interesting questions about the purportedly irresistible power of these drugs, which supposedly justifies using force to stop people from consuming them.

The implication here, of course, is that society needs to ask itself some questions about why violence and legal penalties can be wielded to stop people from using opioids and other drugs of choice, but not to stop people from gobbling down treats made from sugar and fat. Along with many other Americans, Sullum harbored the suspicion that anything the government finds that it can do, it eventually will do, including tase citizens and lock them up for eating cookies.

Study co-author Jamie Honohan was quoted by Forbes as saying,

Even though we associate significant health hazards in taking drugs like cocaine and morphine, high-fat/high-sugar foods may present even more of a danger because of their accessibility and affordability.

(The original Connecticut College press release, by the way, can no longer be found online, but that does not necessarily mean anything. Or… does it?)

At any rate, Sullum wondered in print how, if Oreos are irresistible, do “most people manage to resist them, consuming them in moderation or not at all?” He then went on to point out some problems with the way the study had been conducted, and to conclude that its purpose had merely been to rationalize and justify a government-sponsored “War on Fat.”

Sullum also offered a more reasoned explanation for the study’s findings:

Anything that provides pleasure (or relieves stress) can be the focus of an addiction, the strength of which depends not on the inherent power of the stimulus but on the individual’s relationship with it, which in turn depends on various factors, including his personality, circumstances, values, tastes, and preferences.

Ultimately, the point he wished to make concerned the “fallacious moral justification for forcible intervention, whether aimed at drug abuse or obesity.” He went on to suggest that in such cases, when faced with an addict, society might perhaps be wrong in declaring that “He cannot help himself, so we must help him, whether he likes it or not.” He suggests that unsolicited and unwelcome help is unworthy of the name, and that help imposed by force is no kind of help at all.

A few days after the original press release, The Guardian published a piece by Dana Smith titled “Are Oreos really as addictive as cocaine?” The first line read, “No. No, they’re not,” continuing in a tone that can only be described as sarcastic, “Fine, great, we all like Oreos more than rice cakes. No surprise there.” Smith went on to explain in detail the fallacious foundation on which the science was built, concluding,

These were two completely separate groups of animals that took part in two different experiments — one testing Oreos with rice cakes and another comparing cocaine and saline. Yes the animals showed similar behaviors in response to the drugs and to the high-fat/high-sugar food, but these things cannot be equated if they are not directly compared.

Smith’s article digresses briefly to praise instead the rats/chocolate experiments conducted by Dr. Nicole Avena, but sticks close to the topic:

The idea that junk foods can create addictive-like tendencies is not new, nor is it wrong. But the claims that [the Connecticut College] study makes are.

Smith then describes the compulsion of addiction and the hellish cravings of withdrawal, which can even be “so severe that your body may actually shut down and you can die if you don’t have another hit,” and then promises:

No matter how many Oreos you eat, this will not happen to you.

Written by Pat Hartman. First published October 4, 2024.

Sources:

“Why Oreos Are As Addictive As Cocaine To Your Brain,” Forbes.com, October 18, 2013.

“Research Shows That Cocaine and Heroin Are Less Addictive Than Oreos,” Reason.com, October 16, 2013.

“Are Oreos really as addictive as cocaine?,” TheGuardian.com, October 21, 2013.

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