Is there anything more popular than Oreos and milk for a snack? Can you stop at just two or three?
Statistics show that the Oreo cookie is the number one cookie in America and many countries worldwide. And for most people Oreos must be accompanied by milk. Why is that? What’s in the Oreo that makes it so special and why is the milk important?
Let’s look at the ingredients to see the underlying reasons for this “winning” combination and how it’s contributing to the rising rates of obesity, diabetes… and cancer.
Oreo Cookie Ingredients
UNBLEACHED ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE {VITAMIN B1}, RIBOFLAVIN {VITAMIN B2}, FOLIC ACID), SUGAR, PALM, AND/OR CANOLA OIL, COCOA (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI), HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, LEAVENING (BAKING SODA, AND/OR CALCIUM PHOSPHATE), CORNSTARCH, SALT, SOY LECITHIN, VANILLIN (AN ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR), CHOCOLATE.CONTAINS WHEAT, SOY.
Why You Always Want to Eat More
When you combine high fructose corn syrup with salt and animal fat (cow’s milk), you are making a combination of chemicals that elicit a pleasure response in the brain that demands more stimulation. As long as you continue to stimulate it, the more sensitive the reaction becomes.
This reaction is similar to the excitotoxic response from MSG or glutamates because they are all related. The pleasure and lack of satiation detection by the brain is due to the scientifically formulated balance of sugar, fat, and chemicals. This combination enhances the experience without the satiation factor that tells the brain you have consumed enough so the signal to stop eating is never sent out. Thus you feel “hungry” when in fact you are full.
Are Oreos More Addictive than Cocaine?
This is part of the mechanism that leads to food addiction and has recently been supported by research claiming that Oreos can be as or more addictive than cocaine.
A recent scientific study performed by Joseph Schroeder and his team at the Connecticut College in New London determined that the high fat/high sugar combination is as addictive as morphine and cocaine. Interestingly, they found that in some instances it is even more addictive. This is because the cost of Oreos is lower than cocaine, so the availability is greater to all consumers.
That is a profound and alarming statement to consider. What are the consequences of such an addiction?
The ingredients in Oreo cookies consist of high sugar and high fat plus salt and carbohydrates. This chemical mixture will increase your risk of diabetes and feed cancer and unhealthy bacteria. It will also lead to hyperactivity, mood swings, free radical damage that leads to a higher cancer risk, and hormonal imbalances. Furthermore, if the brain cells experience too much stimulation they could die and then you have brain damage added to the other serious health issues.
Adding Milk Compounds the Problem
If that’s not bad enough, when cow’s milk is added to the mix, you introduce all the problems related to commercial milk production.
Dairy cows are regularly injected with antibiotics to help control a medical condition known as mastitis (which humans can also get). The mastitis is caused by the continual doses of bovine growth hormone used to keep the cow’s producing large quantities of milk even when they are in the “low phase” of their milk production cycle.
At this time the milk produced is higher in fat and lower in protein so the quality is diminished. This fact adds to the risk of cancer because dairy fat contains higher bad estrogens that lead to breast, ovary, prostate, and colon cancers.
If you are consuming excessive amounts of Oreo cookies to feed the food addiction, and washing it down with high fat milk laden with hormones and antibiotics, you are creating a lethal blend that greatly increases your risk of cancer, obesity, and diabetes.
All these factors put extreme stress on your immune and digestive systems so the body becomes helpless in this onslaught of chemical and hormonal invasion.
This is a health hazard today that should be avoided at all cost. Your life and health depend on you making informed decisions to protect it and your family. There are safe alternatives that are also satisfying. Choose unprocessed foods in their whole state and play it safe. We at TTAC offer a number of recipes for better food choices. Food addiction and obesity that lead to cancer is not pleasurable, but there is hope and support when you change your diet.
What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the Comments section below.
Article Summary
Statistics show that the Oreo cookie is the number one cookie in America (and many other countries) and many people love eating them with milk.
When you combine high fructose corn syrup with salt and animal fat (cow’s milk), you make a combination of chemicals that elicit a pleasure response in the brain that demands more stimulation.
The scientifically formulated balance of sugar, fat, and chemicals in Oreos and milk keeps the brain wanting more, even when the stomach is full.
A recent scientific study determined that the high fat/high sugar combination is as addictive as morphine and cocaine
Consuming large quantities of Oreo cookies, and washing it down with high fat milk laden with hormones and antibiotics, creates a lethal blend that greatly increases your risk of cancer, obesity, and diabetes.
I haven’t touched an Oreo in years –maybe because it was rumored the cookie part contained charcoal and that seemed gross to me, but at any rate I apparently don’t have an addiction or craving for them. This article, though well intended, comes off as fear mongering and highly conjectured. Surely, Oreos can’t be singled out for causing all the harm this article implies. People eat plenty of other unhealthy food with the same salt/sugar/fat pleasure stimulation, and maybe the researchers didn’t try other types of cookies or salted caramel chocolate ice cream in their experiment. And where did “the scientifically formulated sugar, fat, and chemicals in Oreos and milk” reference come from? Is it even true that it is “scientifically formulated?” About the study that created all the headlines of Oreos as addictive as cocaine–it seems it didn’t really prove that. See http://www.livescience.com/40488-oreos-addictive-cocaine.html. But this article states that consuming large quantities (how many?) of Oreos with milk creates a “lethal blend” that greatly increases the risk of cancer. Maybe all the addicted Oreo eaters should be surveyed to determine what the incidence of cancer is amongst their population? Then we can start with a factual-based argument on the pros or cons of Oreo eating. Oreos, like a lot of processed foods, are not healthy for you, but they are not the only unhealthy food people binge on. You really don’t need to sensationalize an already oversensationalized headline.
I totally agree with you, Beverly, that this is just one more article that smacks of sensationalism and some half-true ‘Facts’. It could have made a positive splash if toned down and stuck to the truth. I am a health food nut, who eats extremely healthy, and agree that gorging on cookies is bad, and that our milk these days is garbage, but when these authors exaggerate this much, my friends who don’t eat so healthy just say – ‘I never knew anyone to die from Oreos, I’m fine’. I find this over sensationalizing of health subjects to be very detrimental to the cause of healthy eating and the organic movement. You see articles like this all over the internet, claiming that this or that individual food or habit will either cure you or kill you. I feel that if we would just present the facts without the fear producing hype, maybe more people would pay attention.
Ever try just eating 1 Oreo and stopping at that? Or eating the suggested serving size and stopping at that? There is a chemical trigger of addiction going on with this food. While it doesn’t mean everyone eating large quantities of Oreo’s will get one or more of the suggested diseases, eating this regularly in large quantities will certainly set your body up for disease.
Like any study or article it needs to be taken with a grain of salt, and thought. Your questions about further accuracy of the study are definitely food for thought. Either way steering clear from Oreo’s is just a good idea. As I know I cannot eat only 1, or only the serving size and those calories add up! 😉
Yes, Tina, most people can’t stop at one or two…. I think it is naive, Susan and Beverly, to think that companies don’t employ Scientists to get the perfect sugar/flour/fat ratios not only for taste, but to keep people eating more. Its a business model that most food manufacturers follow. No citation needs to be referenced because its a pretty well-known fact.
I’ve never understood why people say they love Oreos, alhough I think that is mainly in the U.S. Personally I hate sweet biscuits, cakes, lollies, sweet ices and all junk food. Even as a child I did not have a ‘sweet tooth’! But I can fully understand how people become addicted to such things, because it seems these foods send a signal to the brain to keep eating more and more – which is very similar to what happens with addictive drugs. And I have seen many overweight people gorge themselves on sweet biscuits and other junk foods, which does suggest a type of addiction. The thing is, you CAN break an addiction like that, but it does take will power. The best way (I think) would to go ‘cold turkey’, throw out all the junk food and replace it with healthy fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy produce, eggs, fish and other high quality foods.
Since almost eliminatin sugar in my diet, I have minimal in coffee creamer, I have not eaten any sweets unless it comes in organic fruits. Pie was my downfall, and I actually went into a restaurant, once a month I stray from organics, I was so proud that I turned down having pie. Since then, I am working on no sweetener in my coffee, slowly. I just equate sugar with cancer cells equal death. This guy on the video is amazing. Wish my brother would have chosen this route. He refused to hear these homeopathic options and has one foot in Heaven and the other on earth, at home in hospice care. I drive three hours every weekend after my work week to lift his weak body from a recliner to the commode on the weekend overnight shift. He has it in his head he has to go every five minutes, for twelve hours many days. If you don’t help him he becomes combative and will force himself up and fall on the floor. It’s agonizing to see him with his skin hanging off his bones, drinking sugared so-called “health shakes” and some family refuse to give him healthy choices. Plus he went through chemo and radiation. Hopefully someone will read these awful side affects and not want to see their family member suffer too. We all are terminal one day, but it doesn’t have to be from this terrible disease.
Marilyn, I really feel for you. It was hard enough for me, when I worked in palliative care, to care for terminally ill cancer patients, and see several of them respond to chemo/radiation the same way your brother has done… but to have someone in your own family go through this, and be helpless to change his condition, must be terrible. And yet it is so common. I would NEVER choose to go down that route, when there is a far better, natural option available which heals rather than poisons the body. And even if we do die (as you say, we will all do so one day) we can do so in sound mind and at peace with ourselves and with God.
Ann, your response to Marilyn was kind hearted, well thought out and genuine. This is the type of collective intention the world is in desperate need of. Random acts of encouragement.
Thank you Maureen. Much appreciated. And I agree that the world needs a lot more ‘random acts of encouragement’ 🙂
I am all for milk….if it is healthy raw. I have seen it do wonders even for yes, that terrible word…. a cancerous situation. Milk that is commerical in the stores is junk and not worth taking home. I wouldn’t give it to a dog and I am not a dog lover. Oreos are best left alone but if you eat one every 10 years it won’t kill you. Make your own healthy chocolate cookies. Plenty of good options with excellent sugars out there….muscovado, coconut etc. You don’t have to be deprived of delicous foods, even sweets, to be healthy if you have access to some great ingredients.
We don’t drink milk in our household anymore. It’s been years, but every now and then my husband craves it, so we try to find raw or low temp pasteurized milk. I can’t remember the last time either of us had an Oreo! We don’t eat store bought sweets, or pre packaged, prepared foods. I cook daily, but I’m at the age where it is getting pretty tiresome, I’d rather we eat good food than processed junk foods, so we press on and I cook daily. We have even found that our dog prefers home cooking and is starting to love fresh cooked veggies which she use to turn her nose up to. It’s amazing how cooking fresh veggies in home made bone broth can tempt a dog to them, lol! I agree that there are many good choices for natural sugar subs. I still use sugar on certain occasions, but it’s always at least half of what a recipe calls for.
I have not eaten Oreo cookies for many years. As I read the ingredients, they are very unhealthy and might cause obesity, cancer, and diabetes. Home-made cookies are always better, because at least you are using natural ingredients and not artificial ones. Drinking too much cow’s milk is not good for you, because one gives antibiotics to cows. Maybe it is best to drink almond, rice, coconut, hemp, and cashew milk instead.
I have been drinking almond milk for the past few years. Being a vegetarian has been the cause of this, but I enjoy the almond milk.
I stay away from stuff like that so depressing that we have all these natural stuff around us and people are made to eat such rubbish. Sad.
Yeast and fungus overgrowth is the cause of inflammation , which is the cause of 90 percent of disease . Oreos and milk feed that fungus just like all grains and sugars do . Giving up sugar , grains , dairy and alcohol was the hardest thing I ever did , but I feel better at 51 then I did at 21 . Only thing more important than what you eat is what you don’t eat . Don’t feed the fungus! Knowthecause.com helped me tremendously .
Having read the line about cows contracting mastitus from injections of growth hormones is intreaging to me, as an organic farmer here in Australia I manufacture ozone machines that kills mastitis in cows , cows can contract mastitus from laying down in their feacies, or slumps in their immune system not necessarily from injections but if these growth injections are in the teet then yes infection will follow, thankfully this practice of interference is not welcome in Australia to my knowledge.
I have not eaten these things in many years and I don’t miss it one bit. No one should eat anything with gluten in it (the types in wheat, barley and rye) since it cannot be digested fully by any human and it causes intestinal damage in EVERY human who eats it.
I grew up on a dairy farm and my brother still runs this farm. He does not inject his cows with hormones to help them produce milk. Sometimes a cow will get mastitis after it calves, he has to treat the infected tit with antibiotics just like a new human mom can get mastitis and it can be make the cow very sick. However the milk is held out of the tank until the cow is done with the treatment. How many of you have actually been to a farm and seen how it operates? Milk in its raw form is the most healthy, but famers are not to sell milk raw to the public. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t actually raise a cow for milk in my neighborhood. I am grateful for the farmers who work hard so I don’t have to have a cow in my yard. Famers are not getting rich financially, but they have the most serene, peaceful, way of life. Don’t just assume that cows are constantly being injected with hormones and antibiotics because it is not legal for a farmer to sell the milk if hormones or bacteria are found and if it is found they have to dump the entire tank of milk and they lose money. The milk is tested before it is pumped into the milk truck. Why would farmers risk there livelihood to make us sick? Dairy farmers raise the cows that produce the milk that is for our health and benefit. Don’t believe everything you read. Don’t just trust a person who has been told something or read something and doesn’t even know a thing about a cow. Where’s the proof, where’s the research? Visit a dairy, learn the truth for yourself.
That might be the case with percentage of farmers but the question is after it is transferred into the milk truck what happens to that milk and where does all that milk go? Do they add anything to the natural milk or any other contaminating agents? Just a thought.
I’ve always thought it laughable when I read ores are or can be as addictive as cocaine. Whoever said that has never done cocaine. I’ve never lost a nights sleep because I ate the last of my oreos and HAD to have more, like I have with cocaine. But aside from that I’m glad and thankful you explained more than what I knew about oreos.
What if the milk comes from cows that do not receive antibiotics or hormones?
I feel that low temp pasteurized milk may be much better than high temp pasteurized, homogenized milk if you must drink milk. Check online. In many states there are farmers who are permitted to sell raw milk.
I’ve drank a oreo milkshake from burger king and it’s terrible. My heart is constantly hurting and i feel like i’m going to die. I read about it and i found that it has lots of calories and it can cause cancer. I’m very afraid now!!
man!! i dont understand one thing, that is there are like 100 more types of cookies like oreo with too much sugar and all that then why only oreo is targeted? i think if because these reasons you say we should stop eating oreo then if you are eating other cookies like oreo but not exactly oreo then whats the difference? you are still in danger? so,if really wanna avoid oreo so much then why dont you avoid all kind of sweet cookies? there are many thing which contains more sugar than oreo than why dont stop eating every sweet thing in the world? why dont live on just salty food?
i think that targeting ONLY oreo is useless.you need to spread awareness about excessive sugar not about excessive OREO
Great information to know and pass along. I wish there was a way to stop the things humans do to animals. It’s not right or fair.. this also relates to the way factories treat baby chickens. when they are born they are thrown around on a conveyor belt and killed if they are to small. They don’t even get a chance to live.
There goes my weekend treat. Oh well, back to meth.
stop beverly