String cheese. It’s one of the few stereotypical childhood snacks that never seems to go away: as juice boxes and Scooby Snacks tend to fall out of lunch boxes, string cheese stands the test of time.

The best part? It’s so fun to eat! You don’t have to let go of your childlike sense of wonder and curiosity: you get to play with your food and it’s socially acceptable.

However, some individuals chose bite their string cheese. Sad.

When you bite your cheese stick, you let go of that childhood zeal and nostalgia. You succumb to the daily pressures placed on you to work quickly and get things done efficiently. What happened to doing things for enjoyment? What happened to taking a breath to enjoy a string cheese as it was intended to be enjoyed — strung! It’s in the name for Pete’s sake!

Food is more than fuel. Food is fun. We gather friends and family around grandiose meals or enjoy a sweet treat at the end of a long day to make us feel better. There’s no reason to brutishly scarf down your string cheese like a savage picking the meat off a week old carcass.

String cheese’s signature fun factor comes with the added benefit of forcing you to slow down while enjoying the dairy-based delicacy. According to Healthdata.org, a whopping 160 million Americans are obese. The main cause? Overeating.

But according to WebMD, eating slowly allows your body to realize you’re full before you’ve already consumed too many calories. When you string your cheese, you give your body more time to digest and avoid putting yourself at risk for a slew of health issues associated with overeating.

WebMD also says that eating slowly can also help you enjoy food more. Taking the time to truly savor every string of that cheese will make it last longer, and it creates a nicer, lighter texture than just taking a big chomp.

Now, say you’re ravenous after a long day, and you want the protein and calcium that string cheese possess stat. According to WebMD, waiting to eat until you’re extremely hungry, such as in the above scenario, is very unhealthy and messes with your metabolism. You’re better to bring your string cheese on the go and eat it before you feel too hungry, rather than scarfing it down all at once.

If you are in a rush and want to eat your cheese quicker, simply buy a kind of cheese that is meant to be bitten. Babybel has some nice on the go varieties, and sargento makes bite-friendly cheese sticks that are meant to be bitten since they do not “string” easily. These are great to bite, but when you’re eating string cheese, it’s best to take the time to savor it.

If you’re worried that stringing your cheese could be unsanitary, the simple solution is to wash your hands, which you should probably do before you eat anyway. You’re no cheese-biting savage; you know how to properly use soap. Saying string cheese is unsanitary is a poor excuse to succumb to such low levels of cheese consumption.

String cheese is something that we’re lucky to have access to. In a world that seems to spin faster every day, it’s important to be able to occasionally take a pause, close your eyes and enjoy a string cheese as nature intended – one string at a time.