Processed Foods Are Easy -- Too Easy -- to Overeat

David Kessler is no fan of Taco Bell's "Fourthmeal" ("the meal between dinner and breakfast").

The former administrator of the Food and Drug Administration hates how restaurants and food makers relentlessly push the overconsumption of food as if it were a good thing. It only intensifies his belief that processed foods are designed to make us want more.

"Next time you're hungry, try to figure out what triggered it," he told health journalists attending an October conference at the University of Miami.

Kessler, now a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, points to research he and a slew of scientists have done on lab rats and humans that shows potential addictions to foods containing a mixture of sugar, fat and salt. It's also the topic of his best-seller: "The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite" (Rodale Press, $24.95).

The idea behind the research is pretty simple: We humans are vulnerable to different cues that stimulate our desires. The presence of sugar, fat and salt in processed foods, in particular, arouses a person to want to eat more, he claims.

When I heard Kessler speak, I was struck by his certainty, and I think there are a lot of important concepts to consider. But personally, I'm still skeptical. It's impossible to look at the topic of food objectively -- it's so intertwined with our physical and mental being. We need it, love it and, yes, sometimes hate how it controls so much of our lives.

I think Kessler's point about food marketing is as much to blame for America's widening waistband as the cravings for processed foods. All it takes is a stroll down the supermarket cereal aisle with a 5-year-old to find ample evidence.

It is important that adult consumers acknowledge their role in falling for the hype. I'm relentlessly frugal, and I constantly fall for product pitches that offer an affordable and nutritious option. Case in point: "The $7 a Meal Healthy Cookbook" (Adams Media, $9.95).