It's on my list! DH just heard an interview on NPR with Kessler and I listened to an excerpt online. Even just the interview left me feeling like you mentioned...things that I was aware of, but somehow it smacked me in the face.
I hope this is OK, here is the bit from the NPR website:
While doing research for his book, The End of Overeating: Taking Control
of the Insatiable American Appetite, former Food and Drug Administration
Commissioner David Kessler went Dumpster diving.
Wearing gardening gloves and dark clothing, Kessler rifled through the
trash bins at some of the nation's most popular restaurants to find out
exactly what they were serving. He wanted an explanation for his own
weakness for junk food and why his weight swung up and down over and
over again with diets following periods of excess.
"I wanted to know what was in the food we were eating, especially in
restaurants," Kessler tells Michele Norris.
He says restaurant food is rich in calories and is loaded with fat,
sugar and salt.
Kessler says the ingredients by themselves may not be harmful, but when
combined with other ingredients and marketing campaigns, they stimulate
millions of Americans.
"I give you a package of sugar and I say, 'Go have a good time.' You're
going to look at me and say, 'What are you talking about?' Now to that
sugar I add fat, I add texture ... I add color, I add temperature, I add
the emotional gloss of advertising.
"I put it on every corner and I tell you, 'You can do it with your
friends.' So what's happening for millions of Americans ... they get
bombarded with foods. Their brains get activated. No one's explained to
them that they are constantly being stimulated."
Kessler says it is possible to create virtually anything with chemicals.
In his book, he writes that a piece of meat can be made to taste like it
has been seared, braised, roasted or grilled. And, he tells Norris, much
of our food today - because it's so highly processed - is enormously
palatable.
"Pick an appetizer. What's in Buffalo wings? You start with the fatty
part of the chicken. Many times it's fried in the manufacturing plant
first. It's fried again in the restaurant. That red sauce? Sugar and
fat. That creamy sauce? Fat and salt.
"So what are we eating? Fat on fat on fat on sugar on fat and salt."
Kessler says that food is excessively activating the brains of millions
of Americans to get them to come back to eat more. Still, he says, that
doesn't mean people bear no responsibility for their actions.
"Once you understand you are being stimulated, then you can begin to
fight back to prevent being manipulated," he says.
