Oreos Ononymous

   
     Raise your hand if you love Oreos. Wow, the entire planet raised their hand. Oreos are delicious sandwich cookies that are made by Nabisco and have been around for over 100 years. If you weren't aware, Oreos are the best selling cookies on the planet. Even the Oreo Twitter account has over 820,00 followers. The mighty Doritos can't even match that. Sorry, Doritos - that's what happens when you can't be bitten and dunked. I bring this up about Oreos because recent studies have suggested that Oreos may be just as addicting as cocaine. Yes, coco. The "I'm in love wit da Coco" coco.
     Researchers at Connecticut College used rats for their study. They had the rats go through mazes and choose Oreos or rice cakes. Of course the rice cakes lost. The rats were also given cocaine and morphine, and they spent just as much time on the cocaine side as they did the Oreo. The brain activity of the rats was measured and they found that neurons in the rats' brains were activated more by Oreos than by the cocaine. Joseph Schroeder, an associate professor at Connecticut College said "this correlated well with our behavioral results and lends support to the hypothesis that high-fat/high-sugar foods are addictive." 
     Now this does not mean that Oreos need to be classified by the DEA, but it does show there are possible correlations. One thing to keep in mind is how close sugar and cocaine actually are. The chemical formula of sugar is C17H21NO4. The formula for table sugar is C12H22O11. Both are white and powdery, with sugar sweet and cocaine bitter. How sugar has been placed in our food has come under fire, and for good reason. One doctor has gone as far to say that sugar is "the new crack cocaine." Another interesting finding of the study: the rats also preferred the creamy center of Oreos to the chocolate wafers as well. All of this shows how Oreos affect the the brain, and deal with our cravings. There is no real narcotic effect from Oreos.
     So again, the DEA needs to stay away; Oreos are perfectly fine. While you want to eat them in moderation because they are junk food after all, you don't have to worry about failing that drug test.