What Are The Best Cookies In America?

When it comes to cookies, no one can bake them better than Mom. But if Mom is too busy and you still want to fill up the cookie jar, which store-bought brand is the best? Harris Interactive did the hard work to find out America's favorite cookies, and five brands led the list of the 20 included in the survey. America's top five favorite store-bought cookies:

1. Oreos
2. Pepperidge Farm Milano Cookies
3. Keebler Fudge Shoppe Fudge Stripes Cookies
4. Nilla Wafers
5. Pepperidge Farm Soft Baked Cookies

Three other brands followed close behind: Chips Ahoy, Chunky Chips Ahoy and Chewy Chips Ahoy.

Meanwhile, one of America's favorite cookies is just as addictive as cocaine -- at least for lab rats. In a study designed to shed light on the potential addictiveness of high-fat/high-sugar foods, Joseph Schroeder, assistant professor of neuroscience at Connecticut College, and undergraduate neuroscience major Jamie Honohan found that rats formed an equally strong association between the pleasurable effects of eating Oreos and a specific environment as they did between cocaine or morphine and a specific environment. They also found that eating cookies activated more neurons in the brain's "pleasure center" than exposure to drugs of abuse. "Our research supports the theory that high-fat/high-sugar foods stimulate the brain in the same way that drugs do," Schroeder said. "It may explain why some people can't resist these foods despite the fact that they know they are bad for them."