The Right Way To Eat An Oreo, According To Science

It's an age-old debate: What is the right way to eat an Oreo? The answer has always varied, depending on who you ask. Some prefer to eat the cookie as it is, without any milk. Others can't even imagine consuming an Oreo without dunking it in a fresh glass of milk first. For those willing to get their hands dirty, breaking apart the Oreo and eating the cream first (or consuming one side at a time) is the most appealing option.

Though the debate might always be ongoing, the Oreo team finally weighed in on what it deems the proper way to eat its cookie. Taste of Home reports that, according to the brand, users should break the cookie apart using a "twist" method, then sample the cream (how you do that is up to you, though most people just lick it), and finally dunk the Oreo half in milk. Marion Delgutte, Oreo's marketing director for its U.S. operations, says "...in our opinion it's still the best way to eat America's favorite cookie," (per Yahoo!News).

Though Oreo's marketing director didn't say exactly why the popular cookie should be eaten in such a way, there is a good reason why the cream should not be separated from the cookie. Taste of Home reports that the fatty cream paired with the sugar from both the cream and the cookie creates a flavor that our brains scientifically crave. So, next time you're considering eating the cream before the cookie, think again because your brain might feel otherwise.

Scientists even took the Oreo research one step further. They wanted to see whether it was possible to actually split an Oreo cookie perfectly down the middle. After plenty of experimentation, via Physics of Fluids, the results suggested that in 95% of all test cookies, the cream remained almost entirely on one side of the cookie after it was split apart. However, there were certain circumstances, such as humidity and temperature, that seemingly led to the cream being distributed on each side of the wafer, though it was not a perfect 50/50 split. If you plan to use Oreo's method of indulging in a cookie, you likely shouldn't bother trying to split the cream perfectly in half.