No, Oreos Aren't As Addictive As Cocaine 285
Daniel_Stuckey writes "If you give a mouse a cookie, you can spend all day following it around the house while it wants to do a bunch of tedious activities. Or, you can trap it in a box, keep feeding it cookies, and then make the outrageous claim that Oreos are as addictive as cocaine. Students at Connecticut College opted for the second option, and the consequences that ensued were much more annoying than making some arts and crafts with a darn mouse. Fox News reported that a 'College study finds Oreo cookies are as addictive as drugs,' Forbes explained 'Why Your Brain Treats Oreos Like a Drug,' and a ton of other sites ran with the story as well. Here's how the experiment, which has not been peer reviewed and has not been presented yet, went down. Mice were placed in a maze, with one end holding an Oreo and the other end holding a rice cake. The mice, without fail, decided to eat the Oreo over the rice cake, proving once and for all that mice like cookies better than tasteless discs with a styrofoamy texture."
Rice cakes ain't that bad. (Score:2)
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Or you can use Nutella!
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Biscoff Spread!
obviously (Score:3)
Re:obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Which is why smart addicts choose to freebase 'em.
This experiment was already done years ago (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie
Who Moved My Cookies? (Score:2)
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Re:Who Moved My Cookies? (Score:4, Funny)
"All employees in Department X working on Project Y are invited to a special mandatory screening of 'Old Yeller', followed by an announcement about Project Y."
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie
But if you teach a mouse to make cookies...
Re:This experiment was already done years ago (Score:5, Funny)
Do not... I repeat, do not... Eat a raisin oatmeal cookie made by mice.
Re:This experiment was already done years ago (Score:4, Funny)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie
But if you teach a mouse to make cookies...
I don't know about mice, but rats are apparently capable of cooking gourmet French food.
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Just remember that cookies are a sometimes food. [youtube.com]
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When you posted that, was the reference not already in the summary? Because it is now, and it makes you look incredibly lame :P
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Yes, good old right-wing early childhood indoctrination. Murrica!
Beloved by such right-wing icons as Charles Schulz, Oprah Winfrey, and Michele Obama.
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The mouse is the rich dude.
It's just an introduction to the adult classic "if you give a fat cat a tax break".
Or perhaps it's just something to help the kids relax before bed.
Sounds kinda like the Rat Park study (Score:5, Interesting)
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Nothing will ever make up for all those animals I've tried to addict and sacrificed just because the human animal is so lazy and adverse of responsibility that it needs a pill to control its behaviour instead of will power and societal change..
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No longer AS addictive. Environment isn't the only factor, otherwise rich people wouldn't become addicts and alcoholics.
If environment were the main factor you could just put people in high priced treatment centers full of waterfalls and back rubs resulting in 100% recovery.
I agree that Rat Park was an interesting experiment but some people tend to take its results and run away with them. Oversimplifying to support their politics.
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you could just put people in high priced treatment centers full of waterfalls and back rubs resulting in 100% recovery.
That sounds so great
They should build one of those for recovering programmers.
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That might actually work better than current treatment if they didn't have to go back to a crappy job, crappier apartment and not enough food after treatment.
i sincerely doubt it would eliminate addiction, but it would likely help. It would certainly be more helpful than jail.
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I agree totally. I've got friends who work in the treatment field, and they all agree; with a good enough treatment facility and daily attention, you can keep most of the people clean. But it is always temporary; they have to go back out in the world. And then they relapse. If they just stayed in treatment forever, they would be much happier.
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As a very obviously non-rich person I imagine the main difference is a lack of day to day "how will I pay the rent??" and being able to afford comfortable living arrangements.
Then there's vacations, spa visits, constant entertainment and overall boredom.
Sounds like Rat Park to me. If they have nice environments and still get addicted then like I said Rat Park is missing the emotional or human element to it. Perhaps daddy is holding back the trust fund or threatening it if I marry the wrong person.
You can't
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N.B. I had to quit drug research because I treated animals too good and they refused to become addicted! Only time I was proud to be a failure!
Media Reporting is as addictive as cocaine. (Score:5, Funny)
Proof? They both seem to result in crazy people making stupid decision.
My reasoning is unassailable.
Hmm.. (Score:3)
The mice, without fail, decided to eat the Oreo over the rice cake, proving once and for all that mice like cookies better than tasteless discs with a styrofoamy texture.
Of course, amongst women, the opposite behavior is seen. At least the ones I know. Does this mean that the tasteless discs with a styrofoam-like texture are actually highly addictive? No. Which means it's easier to get addicted to an abstract ideal about beauty than it is an Oreo cookie. Surprised, I am not. In other news, find me a picture of this professor so I can photoshop him into a new meme along the lines of "I don't want to live on this planet anymore." I'd be ashamed if my students arrived at such a far-fetched and obviously wrong solution, and I allowed them to publish it... it would make me wonder if I'd managed to teach them anything at all...
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I'd be ashamed if my students arrived at such a far-fetched and obviously wrong solution, and I allowed them to publish it... it would make me wonder if I'd managed to teach them anything at all...
Ummm ... The story seems to make it clear that this "study" hasn't been published at all. But it did get leaked to the mass media, who did their usual scientifically-illiterate hack job on it, and used it to support their own favorite beliefs.
The only story here is the usual one about how the media finds ways to radically distort both the best and the worst "scientific" work into social propaganda. This includes routinely presenting work that can't even vaguely qualify for the term "scientific" as a "S
Mice = Calorie Hunters (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly, what they demonstrated was that the mice would go for the item with the highest density of calories & fat.
Duh...
Now make it really interesting, replace rice patty with a peanut butter cup. And it's an all out rat race.
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There was an interesting study from 30 years ago where they fed people whipped concoctions woth varying amounts of sugar and fat.
The thinner you were, the more you preferred the sweeter ones, and the fatter, the fatter ones. As fat contains more calories per unit than sugar, it could be enlightening...
If anyone actually paid attention, which they don't. Basically fat people are fat more because of cheeseburgers and pizza than cakes and donuts.
Actually, it correlates with diet soda. Actually, it correlate
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Was this study conducted by Coke or merely funded by it?
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No, they should have put cocaine at the other end. Then we'd know for sure if Oreos are as addictive as cocaine. A simple test made complex by lack of the right resources.
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They did use cocaine. They used cocaine, a saline solution and Oreos. The brain chemistry in eating Oreos and the drugs they used, morphine and cocaine, had the same results.
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"Clearly, what they demonstrated was that the mice would go for the item with the highest density of calories & fat."
Yes, indeed. "Researchers" have "proven" that food is addictive.
So is oxygen, btw. Just say no. Think of the children.
Stopped reading at (Score:2, Interesting)
..Fox News
Oreos found 0% addictive (Score:5, Informative)
He's developed his own measure for it: The percentage of people who will develop the disease of dependency, based on the DSM-IV guidelines, if they use a drug. . . .
"According to that, the most chemically addictive is nicotine because one third of people who use it during their lifetime will develop dependency," he said. "For cocaine, it's 20 percent. For heroin, it's 23 percent."
So by that standard, Oreos = 0% addictive.
Oh, well.
if food is as addictive as drugs.... (Score:3)
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Michelle chose the second option (Score:3)
and Michelle Obama chose "have a war on food".
This while her husband was mandating the mass burning of vegetables.
This cookie is addictive (Score:3)
http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/ [dashnet.org]
"As addictive as drugs" (Score:5, Interesting)
So in other words...WTF??
(P.S. I'm not really educated in any of this kind of stuff and don't really know what I'm talking about - so don't bother correcting me)
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Mod up.
I think WTF is, the kids doing the "study" knew exactly what kind of phrases to use to make it highly likely that news sources would run with the story. It's kinda like a news outlet version of a "mail forward".
In fact, this could be an entertaining game, if it isn't already. Produce some bogus datum, wrap it in the kind of buzzwords news outlets find irresistible, and see what national news agencies fall for it.
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(P.S. I'm not really educated in any of this kind of stuff and don't really know what I'm talking about - so don't bother correcting me)
Actually, your assessment is pretty much spot on - "drugs" describes an uncountable number of substances, many of which are legal and some which are not.
Even if we assumed the writer was specifically referring to illicit/illegal drugs, there's still a few thousand different kinds, each with its own properties and addiction rates.
Stupid hardly even begins to describe what's going on here, both with the "researcher's" study and the "journalists" reporting it.
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You can't just compare something to "drugs" - because different drugs work differently -
The fact that they have differing mechanisms of action doesn't mean you can't compare something to them. And the fact that something isn't technically a drug (tobacco) doesn't mean it can't be addictive and doesn't mean it doesn't in fact contain a drug (nicotine).
and have differing levels of addictive qualities
Here's where the sensationalism of this /. submission can be addressed. The "Motherboard" article goes to great length to disparage this experiment, but also admits that "addiction" isn't mentioned in the DSM-IV. That is a good indication that t
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Somewhere there was a comment about being addicted to food. As in, you can't be. Well, yes, you can, in the pure dependence meaning of the term, too. If you don't eat food you suffer extreme withdrawal symptoms. Death can be a final symptom. And you can be addicted to foods in the common language meaning of addiction. Mmmm, I love mint chocolate chip ice cream. I have a strong urge to eat it...
In which case water is even more addictive than even food (the mean number of person-days water is taken is bound to be higher than the mean number of person-days food is taken). Better still, food is not only addictive, it is the most overdosed on substance in the world with food pusher's selling as much as multiple daily overdoses to anyone who can afford a fix.
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Perhaps in the same manner that a dmv worker isn't a specialist in driving. Nice try at self-importance though.
11 parts sugar, 89 parts lard (Score:2)
What's the white stuff in an Oreo, Alex?
Re:11 parts sugar, 89 parts lard (Score:4, Interesting)
It cannot be lard as Oreo cookies are one of the very rare commercially-made treat that also happens to be vegan except maybe the white sugar in it, if you're an extreme vegan.
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that also happens to be vegan except maybe the white sugar in it
What extremes of veganism has white sugar coming from animals? There aren't any sugar cows. Sugar comes from cane or beets, not an animal. Or have we just slouching into equating vegan with "hobby farm diet" now?
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See reply from rubycodez, above.
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Many things use animal parts in the production process. In this case, bone char is used to whiten the sugar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_char [wikipedia.org]
I don't think it's particularly extreme for vegans to avoid those that are straightforward to avoid. I've easily met 10 people who have chosen one beer over another because it isn't filtered with isinglass (fish bladder extract). So far, no one has made a big deal about it.
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Half of "white sugar" in the USA is cane sugar which has to go through a filtering step (beet sugar does not) where it goes through activated charcoal. Half the time that charcoal is made from animal bone instead of plant matter. So there is 25% your bag of sugar was filtered through the carbon that came from bones. But quite frankly I'd argue to vegan that the plant itself grew from soil with animal matter in it anyway
So cocaine must not be that bad then, huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
You know more than a few people must have thought that when this piece of shit excuse for a "study" made its way into the headlines. Just how many years now will I - or the great minds of /. - have to go around correcting morons who will repeat this shit, having never bothered to read the article, learn about the source, to critically analyze the source, to think about the study, to see what, if any, corroborating evidence was subsequently discovered or not, and checked for any retractions or clear refutations? Beyond that, what the fuck ever happened to journalism?
Damn it all to hell, I need an Oreo. (1.86 Stuf please)
Mom sez... (Score:5, Funny)
If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll want a glass milk.
If you give him some milk, he'll want more. If you give a mouse more milk, he'll develop a taste for human blood.
If he develops a taste for human blood, he'll become a vampire. If he becomes a vampire, he'll have to make followers.
Now, if he makes some followers, they'll need to feed. If they feed too much, the national guard will be called out.
If the national gaurd is called out, they, too, will become fodder for the vampires. If the national guard fails, the President will call in a nuclear strike.
If a nuke is dropped, hundreds of thousands of people will die. America will become a nuclear wasteland and collapse.
With no one to keep the rest of the world's nukes in check, every crackpot nation will launch their own.
Eventually the entire earth will be destroyed. And that's why I had to kill Daddy.
He was giving a mouse a cookie. Sleep well, sweetie.
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Thanks for the laugh.
rice cakes (Score:5, Funny)
> The mice, without fail, decided to eat the Oreo over the rice cake, proving once and for all that mice like cookies better than tasteless discs with a styrofoamy texture."
Hey, I happen to like rice cakes. They're nice and crunchy, and they taste good. With a little cinnamon. And powdered sugar. And peanut butter. And then drenched with maple syrup.
Yes, the diet is coming along fine, why do you ask?
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there are also good with cheese, jelly, tuna, other meat....not altogether at once. conclusion: rice cakes are making me fat
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So, a more valid test would be to smear the rice cakes with lard-based vanilla-frosting-like substance, dump chocolate syrup on it, and put *that* on one side of the maze.
Well, here's a more nuanced view. (Score:2)
Which seems to indicate that there is some basis for comparability between the two, even if they are different, and further research is needed.
"the articles from this symposium provide evidence that neurological similarities exist in the response of humans (6) and rats (7,9) to foods and to drugs. Two of the reports (6,7), as well as our own work (14–16), suggest that even highly palatable food is not addictive in and of itself. Rather, it is the manner in which the food is presented (i.e., intermitte
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(Note, I'm not responding to the criticism of the not-peer-reviewed study in the article which I agree is a useless study, but rather its later assertion).
Network Programming (Score:2)
I don't think anyone has truly considered the ramifications of superintelligent pandimensional projections appearing as mice and influencing our experiments... How else would you program a global scale quantum supercomputer made up of sentient neural network applications? Consider that to us, any observable differentiation between themselves normal laboratory mice would directly collapse the delicate superposition of science and fiction...
Ergo: The more important question is: WHY do the mice want you to t
Withdrawal symptoms? (Score:2)
IDK about you, but you don't want to be anywhere near me when my Oreo supply runs out...I'll cut you, bitch! I'll cut you deep! :)
Seriously, though, at first I thought this was a legit test, but it's pure BS. A better* test would be three groups of mice in three mazes: Cookie vs Cocaine, Cookie vs Rice Cake and Cocaine vs Rice Cake. Guess what? Bet'cha rice cakes would be considered more addictive than cocaine as well, allowing us to draw the conclusion that...mice like food, the more calorie-rich, the
Hyperbole? Perhaps... perhaps not (Score:2)
There are a lot of "addictive" qualities of many of the food products we ingest. Many of them are engineered to delay the "satisfy button" in our systems so that we eat more. (The common response to this problem is people asserting "eat more slowly" and "drink more water") and to that I say... uh, no. In a busy life, one doesn't always have time to pause and "enjoy" food. Eating is sometimes an interruption of whatever it is we are doing... fun, work, whatever. We are not always at leisure to determine
Sounds to me like (Score:2)
One bright side (Score:2)
The only useful information from that experiment is that rodents also like to eat the cream filling first, then the cookie.
Shouldn't the researchers... (Score:3)
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I'm not into uppers/stimulants. I'd rather do a line of oreos off a hookers ass any day of the week. but then, I'd rather do the hooker than the oreos. proving women are more addictive than cocaine or oreos
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I'm impressed that you chose not to post this anonymously.
I have conclusive proof (Score:3)
All I need to do is couch this in flamboyant, headline-ready terms, and the networks will eat it up. So to speak.
"woof".
Reminds me of this comic (Score:3)
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worse was a Hershey bar, which seemed like eating solidified excrement mixed with sand.
That's unfair.
Hershey's chocolate tastes of sick, not shit, because the milk is lipolyzed, producing butyric acid -- also found in vomit.
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You'll have to be more specific about the treacle as it goes from clear to near-black. Blood pudding? If you meant black pudding, that's a savoury item. As for clotted cream biscuits, they're not biscuits even by the American use of the word and clotted cream is basically just thick whipped cream. They're usually served warm with jam and a cup of tea.
Spray-on cheese. Now the ball's in your court.
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As an American, I'm going to have to agree with you... That "processed cheese spread" stuff is pretty vile stuff, but it keeps without refrigeration. Most of us on this side of the pond don't quite "get" that European food thing. Especially English food. Some of it sounds pretty bad to us.
I tried a lot of different stuff when on a trip to Manchester and while some of it was not appealing to me, I did find much to like in my week's stay. I found some incredible Indian food that I've never been able to ma
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Britain is the most challenging European country to find good food in as a visitor, especially in the larger cities.
I'm sorry, wot? The place is littered with chip shops, you almost can't swing a dead haggis without hitting one. And pub grub? Yummmm. A nice shepherd's pie, a Cornish pasty ... a pint of Strongbow ... oh, man.
there are several huge, expensive franchise restaurants selling average to poor steak for the price of very good steak.
The fact that chains are an ever-present hazard doesn't mean it's hard to find good stuff, just that it is easier than it should be to find crap. Ever since my horrible experience with MickeyD in Japan (teryaki burgers, yuk!) I don't go to any chains when I travel abroad, and certainly not US ones.
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Fried bread? Lets take some nasty bacon grease, and soak bread in it and fry it.
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I'm sorry, but bread fried in bacon grease is awesome.
Sure, it's got to be fresh grease, not something that's been in the pan for a week, and I wouldn't try it if you're prone to cholesterol problems....
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You have to be specific, because they're right. North American chocolate is crap. Yes, 'excrement mixed with sand' is an exaggeration, but any chocolate made in North America is mediocre at best. The only decent chocolate here is shipped from Europe, and is exhorbitantly priced as a result.
This is coming from a Canadian, from my experiences of what's available here and in the north eastern US. Maybe Florida and Texas have better chocolate, but nothing I've found from here comes anywhere close to any
American Zombies want.... braaaaaaaiiiiiins (Score:2)
treacle, blood pudding, and clotted cream biscuits are much better than anything over here. We eat pure shit compared to the delicacies to be had in your dusty corner for the world.
Seriously, if you mean black treacle- it has a stronger taste than the golden variety, and I wasn't a big fan as a kid, but it's quite nice as an ingredient. Black pudding? Haven't eaten it for years, but I'd put it in my mouth. Clotted cream? Method of thickening cream by slightly cooking it- never tried it, but can't be that bad.
So what have the Americans got? Skip this if you're eating lunch... One of the most genuinely unpleasant sounding- and looking- "delicacies" I've ever heard of, but fortunately
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So what have the Americans got? Skip this if you're eating lunch... One of the most genuinely unpleasant sounding- and looking- "delicacies" I've ever heard of, but fortunately never tasted. Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you... canned pork brains in milk gravy. [avclub.com]
If you came to any random American city and asked people if that was an American food, they would all agree that no it is not. If you asked if they had heard of it, no, they have not. If you asked if it is probably sold in the US somewhere, they would probably speculate that it is, somewhere.
Re:Cookies (Score:5, Funny)
It's a good thing Oreos aren't as addictive as a drug.
Imaging if you took a hit of Oreos, got high, then got the munchies, ate Oreos, got high, then got the munchies, ate Oreos.... etc.
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Eh it's fun for a day or two, like most things on the Internet that follow the same formula.
Re:Grandmapocalypse! (Score:4, Funny)
Cookie Monster wish he could agree. Cookie Monster have serious long-term problem with cookies. Cookie Monster blow man behind dumpster yesterday for cookies.
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Apparently, Forbes, the Washington Times, the NY Post, et al are also summarily dismissed, right?
New flash: idiots abound in the media. See: Blair, Jayson.
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Re:Here's how you know it's bs (Score:4, Informative)
Here:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/53293963/ns/local_news-indianapolis_in/ [nbcnews.com]
Exact same fucking story.
Now, can we please start acting like grown ups, and stop pretending that there's any notable difference between the Corporate Media Networks?
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There is a strong difference between Fox News, and other news. Well documented, strong and direct link to the Pubs and tea party.
Grow up and stop thinking everything is equal.
Re:Press release from a not even published poster. (Score:5, Insightful)
And you can't even be mad at this one since it is done by undergrads.
Yes, actually you can, this "study" isn't acceptable even by High School standards. For someone pursuing a Major course of study to make such obvious, fundamental procedural errors it's downright shameful.
They never ran any kind of control on the maze. They should have put rice cakes at BOTH exits and ran the mice through a large number of times to prove that the design of the maze isn't leading the mice to the "drugs" exit more frequently.
They never ran any direct comparison between the Oreos and the Cocaine. Just because mice chose Cocaine over Rice, and chose Oreos over Rice, DOES NOT lead to the conclusion that Oreos are the same as Cocaine. That's basic, fundamental logic they should have learned in GRADE SCHOOL.
There are only TWO possible explanation for this "study". Either these undergrads are a pack of completely incompetent fucking morons.... or they snorted all the Coke they were supposed to be using for the experiment and faked the data.
Re:Press release from a not even published poster. (Score:5, Insightful)
And you can't even be mad at this one since it is done by undergrads.
Yes, actually you can....
Seriously, a press beat up about a bunch of collage kids screwing up their class science project makes you "mad"? - And who are you mad at? - Strangely it's not the "journalist" who manufactured the beat up, it's the kids!! Little wonder the American public are so easily manipulated via their own media outlets.
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Conclusion: rats don't like rice cakes either. Can't say that I blame them, it's like eating Styrofoam.
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Don't confuse the media with the study. for example:
"Our research supports the theory that high-fat/ high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in the same way that drugs do,"
and if you read the actual link you will find they did use controls, for the drug; the control you talk about wouldn't work as an actual control for the actual test.
I'm not defending the study, but lets at least read the link and not fall in to the journals hyperbole.
Re:Press release from a not even published poster. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because mice chose Cocaine over Rice, and chose Oreos over Rice, DOES NOT lead to the conclusion that Oreos are the same as Cocaine.
Saying that one thing is just as X as another isn't saying that the two things are the same. "The outside of an oreo is just as brown as the turd from a /. poster" doesn't mean that oreos are the same as your steaming pile. That's basic, fundamental logic you should have learned in GRADE SCHOOL.
There are only TWO possible explanation for this "study".
Or the third, most probable explanation. It was an undergrad science project intended to promote interest in STEM education. And GIRLS in STEM. Did you fail to notice in your haste to rip them a new one that, except for the professor involved, all the people listed in the article were WOMEN?
Hey, here's a novel concept. Not every lab experiment has to be publication quality research for the people involved to learn something, or for it to motivate them to continue their education so they can learn more. Every term there is a lab class that meets outside my office window that drops pop bottles containing dry ice into a large container of water, to demonstrate the physics behind geysers. Boom! Splash! My God! They aren't using controls! They didn't test the effects of just dropping the pop bottle into the water! And the water doesn't have all the dissolved mineral content that geyser water has! The water isn't boiling hot! There aren't any Park Rangers around keeping them on the boardwalks! They can't learn anything from this! It's bad science! Fire everyone involved! Cancel the journal that would publish such nonsense!
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I'm more concerned that Soulskill killed a fun potential application of Betteridge's law of headlines. Curses!
It's supposed to pose a question for me answer in nerdrage!