Is Cheese Addictive? No, Not Exactly

For many people who might consider adopting a plant-based diet, foregoing cheese is the ultimate obstacle. It’s a ubiquitous and extremely popular ingredient, and “I could never give up cheese” is a common refrain in discussions about veganism. Many people have argued that cheese is not only tasty, but addictive. But is that claim supported by science, or is it just hyperbole? Let’s take a look.

What Does It Mean to Call a Substance Addictive?

To determine whether or not cheese is addictive, we first have to define “addictive.” While most people have an intuitive understanding of what something being addictive means, defining the term specifically isn’t quite as clear-cut as it may seem.

Merriam-Webster defines addiction as, “a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence.”

The Difference Between Biological and Psychological Addiction

According to this definition, an addiction can be biological or psychological, and can center on either a substance or a behavior. In this view, everything from alcohol, cocaine and caffeine to gambling, working and playing video games can become addictive under the right circumstances (or the wrong circumstances, as it were).

This is a rather broad definition that works fine in colloquial contexts. But when we ask whether or not cheese is addictive, we’re not asking if it’s “addictive” in the casual, social sense — we know it’s addictive in the casual, social sense — but rather, if it’s addictive on a physiological level.

In its chapter on addictive disorders, the DSM-5 lists 11 symptoms of substance abuse. While most of them are behavioral in nature — using the substance in risky situations, for instance, or withdrawing from social obligations to use or obtain it — the manual describes two physiological symptoms of addiction: tolerance and withdrawal.

In the DSM, tolerance is defined as, “requiring a markedly increased dose of the substance to achieve the desired effect or a markedly reduced effect when the usual dose is consumed.” Withdrawals are the physical symptoms a heavy substance user experiences when they stop using the substance. The DSM says that withdrawal symptoms vary significantly from substance to substance, but in general, a person experiencing withdrawals “is likely to consume the substance to relieve the [withdrawal] symptoms.”

So, is cheese physiologically addictive, causing withdrawal symptoms? Let’s take a closer look.

Casein and Cheese ‘Addiction’

At its essence, cheese is curdled milk, and the process by which milk curdles offers some clues as to how cheese might potentially be addictive.

Milk of all kinds contains casein, a type of protein. When a coagulant such as rennet or acid is added to milk, it causes the casein proteins to clump together and form curds. These curds are then extracted from the milk and pressed into cheese.

Cheese, in other words, is essentially concentrated casein proteins. When humans eat casein, our digestive systems break it down into smaller compounds called casomorphins. Casomorphins are a type of opioid that causes our brains to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter infamous for producing feelings of pleasure and satisfaction.

Because milk contains casein even before it’s processed into cheese, drinking milk also provides a small dopamine hit. Some have speculated that this is an evolutionary development, with newborns being incentivized to drink their mother’s milk due to the dopamine reward they receive from it.

But cheese offers a much bigger dopamine hit, because it contains a much higher concentration of casein: It takes 10 pounds of milk to produce one pound of cheese.

This is one reason why many people find cheese so irresistible, and it’s been argued that cheese’s high concentration of casein proteins makes it addictive. After all, if eating a food produces intense feelings of pleasure and reward, who wouldn’t want to keep eating it?

Other Compounds That Might Make Cheese Addictive

In addition to casein, the high fat content of cheese has also been flagged as a potentially addictive property. Studies have shown that over time, high-fat diets can change how dopamine is released and expressed in the brain, leading to a higher “tolerance” for dopamine and, by extension, increased cravings for it.

That’s not all. Cheese contains phenylalanine, an essential amino acid that, when metabolized by the body, produces a stimulant called phenylethylamine. Like caseins, phenylethylamine increases dopamine levels, and both its effect on humans and its chemical structure are often compared to that of amphetamines — an infamously addictive variety of drug.

There’s also tyrosine, another amino acid found in cheese that‘s derived from phenylalanine. In addition to boosting dopamine and adrenaline levels, tyrosine has been shown to improve sleep and cognition, offering yet more reasons why so many people have a hard time quitting cheese.

A Reality Check: Cheese Isn’t Necessarily Addictive

The above compounds all help explain why cheese is so appealing. They don’t, however, prove that cheese is addictive.

For one, none of the above chemicals are exclusive to cheese. Other dairy products contain casein as well; phenylalanine can be found in everything from meat and eggs to tofu and nuts, and by extension, so can phenylethylamine and tyrosine. And at the risk of stating the obvious, cheese is not the only food with high fat content, either.

Moreover, even if cheese was the only food that contained the aforementioned compounds, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that it’s biologically addictive. A key component of addiction is the concept of withdrawal; if a person is chemically addicted to a substance, they’ll experience negative physiological consequences if and when they stop consuming that substance.

This simply isn’t true about cheese. Giving up cheese might make you angry or dissatisfied with your diet. It might make you enjoy your meals less. But it won’t cause you physical pain, damage your body or otherwise impair your general ability to function. Nicotine withdrawals, by contrast, can cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, depression, loss of appetite, anxiety and dizziness, while alcohol withdrawals can literally kill you.

Merriam-Webster also says that in order to be addictive, a substance must have “harmful physical, psychological, or social effects.” Whether this applies to cheese is, at best, debatable.

Sure, it’s possible to eat so much cheese that your health suffers — although this is true with every type of food. One could make the argument that having an intense craving for cheese is a form of psychological harm, and while it may seem like a stretch, it’s at least possible to imagine somebody eating so much cheese that they suffer negative social consequences as well.

Nevertheless, the mere act of eating cheese does not, in and of itself, cause a person harm. A cigarette puts a little bit of tar in your lungs with every puff you take, and consuming any amount of alcohol increases your risk of various negative health outcomes. Cheese just doesn’t work that way. A bite of cheese isn’t going to hurt you.

Okay, But Seriously, Is Cheese Addictive or Not?

In addition to the specific properties of cheese itself, the question is also difficult to answer because “addiction” is a rather vague term with no consensus definition.

Sometimes, it’s clear-cut. Nobody would argue that alcohol or cocaine aren’t addictive; conversely, nobody would argue that water or air are addictive. Plenty of things fall neatly and uncontroversially into one one category or the other. But sometimes it’s much thornier.

Take sex. Many people will tell you that they’ve struggled with a sex addiction, and that their relationship to sex closely mirrored the relationship between, for example, an alcoholic and alcohol.

But unlike other addictive behaviors, having sex isn’t intrinsically bad for you — in fact, it’s actively good for you. Moreover, many people who’ve never had sex nevertheless crave it intensely, which isn’t the case with other addictions. These may be some of the reasons why the American Psychiatric Association excluded sex addiction from the DSM-5’s compendium of disorders.

How about food? Unlike any other ostensibly addictive substance, food is necessary for our survival; we all have to eat it, by virtue of our biology, or we’ll die. There is no other addictive substance that this applies to — and yet nevertheless, many do indeed have an unhealthy relationship with food that, in almost every practical sense, functions as an addiction.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, cheese would seem to fall short of being a biologically addictive substance. That doesn’t mean it’s not habit-forming, or that plenty of people don’t have a hard time giving it up. It’s certainly “addictive” in the casual, colloquial sense of the word, but from a scientific standpoint, there just isn’t quite enough evidence to show that cheese is biologically addictive as well.