Headlines about a research showing that being addicted to cheese is like being addicted to crack have surfaced and made noise last week. However, we have to remember that practically and honestly speaking, eating cheese is not even a little bit like smoking or being addicted to crack.

According to Huffington Post, there are two sources with scientific information that doesn't show cheese has addictive properties.

The first is a study published this year by the University of Michigan. They asked two groups of people to rank 35 foods from the most to the least addictive. Pizza, chocolates and chips are at the top of the list. From the result the researchers concluded that processed food with fats and sugar have a high chance of being addictive to people. They just needed to do this survey and analyze the data and make a speculation about why they are more addictive than others. They, themselves were uneasy about the headline being "cheese is crack". They pointed out that their studies showed the opposite result which is, people usually have a harder time to control their intake of processed food not specifically cheese.

Second source is the 2011 book, 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart: Boost Metabolism, Lower Cholesterol, and Dramatically Improve Your Health by Dr. Neal Barnard. The book highlights studies from as early as 1982 to 2000 about dairy products having a protein called casein. When our body starts to metabolize this, it breaks into peptides called casomorphins that is chemically similar to opioid drugs like morphine or heroin. He called cheese as "dairy crack," which is where most of the headlines came about. His colleague, Cameron Wells who is a dietitian and clinical researcher as well said that the "crack" description was sensationalized in order to attract readers.

A more recent study show that the effect of casomorphin is very mild. A 2009 study review on casomorphins found that opioid -like effects in animals can be present if they are injected directly in their body or brain.

Finally, we can say that, "Cheese isn't like crack".