Why do mice like cheese?

A lot of cartoon mice seem to love cheese, but there’s no reason to think that real mice would like it. Mice survive by eating seeds and other plant materials. They probably could not digest cheese very well.

Scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University in England did experiments to see which foods were the favorites of several kinds of animals. When mice had a choice, they didn’t pick cheese. They chose chocolate and other foods that have a lot of sugar. Eating a lot of sugar would not be healthy for us, or even for mice. But sugar is food energy and hard to find outside of a kitchen or grocery store. In the wild, most mice can eat all the sugar they can find and burn it all just in their daily activities.