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 Each year, Americans consume over 35 pounds of cheese per person. In addition to those bricks of cheddar in our fridges, we're eating cheese melted on pizza and quesadillas, folded into sandwiches and omelets, sprinkled on veggies and pasta... well, we don't need to tell you. 
 
 While cheese is delicious, taste may not be the only reason we're eating so much of the melty, fatty stuff. Cheese, as it turns out, may also be addictive. 
 
 The science: A recent University of Michigan study investigated which items serve as the drugs of the food world. Lo and behold, pizza topped the "addictive" list. So what makes it so hard to just have one slice? 
 
 The key quality of addictive foods, the study found, was processing: Unprocessed foods like salmon or brown rice were not associated with addictive eating behaviors, while highly processed foods like French fries and potato chips were. And many processed foods have one thing in common: fat. "Fat seemed to be equally predictive of problematic eating for everyone, regardless of whether they experience symptoms of 'food addiction,'" Erica Schulte, one of the study's authors, told Mic. 
 
 At the top of the list of fatty, processed foods are items with cheese, including pizza. And as it turns out, in addition to sugar of the tomato sauce and the carbs in the crust lighting up our brain's dopamine receptors (the chemicals often linked to addiction), there's a specific ingredient in cheese that gets us hooked — a chemical called casein. 
 
 Source: Getty 
 
 What's the deal with casein? Cheese, a highly concentrated form of dairy, has the added kick of casein, a protein found in all milk products. According to Dr. Neal Barnard of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, casein "breaks apart during digestion to release a whole host of opiates called casomorphins." Multiple studies have shown that casomorphins interact with opioid receptors, which are involved in controlling pain, reward and addiction in the brain. 
 
 "[Casomorphins] really play with the dopamine receptors and trigger that addictive element," registered dietitian Cameron Wells told Mic. 
 
 In milk, casein has a minuscule dosage. But producing a pound of cheese requires about 10 pounds of milk — and the substance that coagulates the solid milk fats and separates them from the liquids (also called whey) is none other than casein. The more casein, the more casomorphins. 
 
 According to the University of Illinois Extension Program, caseins makes up 80% of the proteins in cow milk. While it's still debated just how much of an opioid effect casomorphins have, some food scientists go so far as to describe cheese as "dairy crack," as Barnard did in the Vegetarian Times. Despite these early findings, few scientists have looked into this area of research. According to Wells, it's likely due to a lack of funding. "It's certainly not in the interest of the dairy industry to further explore the topic," she said. 
 
 Source: Getty 
 
 Hooked on cheese: Though some companies produce casein-free vegan "cheese," most of us are eating 35 pounds a year of what may be the real opium of the people. And that "addiction" has only spiraled. 
 
 Since 1970, Americans have more than tripled our cheese consumption. While we eat cheese at home more often, we're also embracing it at restaurants and fast food joints that reel us in with extra-cheesy specials. Taco Bell doesn't just have variations on a "cheesy burrito," they now have the "quesarito." (Pro tip: Chipotle will make a quesarito if you ask for it.) If that doesn't float your boat, how about the cheese-stuffed crust on Pizza Hut's "ultimate cheese-lover's pizza"? 
 
 While it's casein that may make it hard to cut back, opiates aren't really cheese's biggest problem. Last year, a study revealed that high-protein diets (mostly from eating a lot of meat and cheese) can have health effects similar to smoking. Those who had too much protein had shorter lifespans and a higher risk of cancer than those with a low or moderate protein intake. For decades, cheese has also been linked to heart disease, although the claims are (thankfully) still being debated. That said, cheese isn't exactly a low-fat item. 
 
 But hey, acknowledging we're addicted is the first step. Plus, in moderation, a little bit of cheese may actually be good for us. It's impossible to know exactly how much cheese turns one into a cheese junkie. But we can know why we're hooked — and why we're going to continue to ask for extra cheese on our pizza.
– Pizza is the most problematic food out there, as far as addictive-like qualities go. So report students who completed the Yale Food Addiction Scale as part of a study by researchers at the University of Michigan. Those researchers published their findings in PLoS ONE earlier this year, and wrote that "though evidence of 'food addiction' continues to grow, no previous studies have yet examined which foods or food attributes are likely implicated in addictive-like eating." So they sought to create a sort of "addictive profile," and ultimately determined that processed foods that are higher in fat and refined carbohydrates, which have a rapid rate of absorption as indicated by glycemic load, tend to be hardest for we mere mortals to resist. "Processing was a large, positive predictor for whether a food was associated with problematic, addictive-like eating behaviors." The common-sense upshot: salmon and cucumbers aren't problematic; ice cream and chips are. And with pizza atop our gotta-have-it list, Mic this week looks at what may set cheese apart. Cheese contains the protein casein, which releases opiates called casomorphins as the cheese is digested. "[Casomorphins] really play with the dopamine receptors and trigger that addictive element," registered dietitian Cameron Wells, who was not part of the study, tells Mic. And while it's present in all dairy products, it's far more condensed in cheese because it takes 10 pounds of milk to make about a pound of cheese. When it comes to cheese, we're certainly eating more of it: Americans tripled their cheese consumption between 1970 and 2010, from about 8 pounds per year to 23 pounds, reports the Center for Science in the Public Interest. (Could its addictive nature help explain this epic mac and cheese meltdown?)