Complaint: Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.

I’m reading “The End of Overeating” by the former head of the FDA and boy howdy, it’s hitting me and my muffin top where we live.

I’m only about one tenth through it, but already I can see the writing on the wall, and it’s covered in chocolate, gravy and butter.

The culprits, according to David A. Kessler, are the trifecta of sugar, fat and salt. Restaurants and food manufacturers go OUT OF THEIR WAY to make food combinations that capitalize on these three things and make us want them…real bad.

The result? We eat like starved pigs at the trough. We eat more than we need. We eat more than we want. We eat when we’re not even hungry. And we think about food. A lot.

I don’t know about you, but I found it rather comforting to have it affirmed that I am not the only one who thinks about what I’m going to eat next ALL DAY.

Kessler says both people of healthy and unhealthy weights are prone to this. I know that later in the book he is going to talk about his own eating challenges. I guess his weight went all over the map through the years, and he wondered why. This book answers it.

So yes, a plate of M and Ms staring up at you while you try to have a constructive meeting really are a distraction. A strong one.

We’re fat and getting fatter as a nation, and the people manufacturing our food are encouraging us every lumbering step of the way.

Kind of scary, no?

I saw an ad for like, Applebee’s or Outback Steakhouse or something and I felt the evil. They WANT us to eat all those fried onions and slathered potato skins. They want us to spend money and they don’t care that we’re bloating out and killing ourselves in the process.

So we have to care ourselves. We can’t go all nihilist like these guys. We have to be alert. I see these ads for baby back ribs with freaking chocolate gravy and whatnot and I think, ewww, propaganda. If I order that, I’ll not only eat all of it, I’ll eat the triple-sized deep-dish mocha-loco-choco-ya-ya torte a la double mode for dessert.

And then I’ll wonder why I ate so much. And why I feel bloated and sluggish. And I’ll vow not to do it again.

And the next time I end up at a party or restaurant where there’s a vegetable tray, it won’t matter; I’ll still inexorably be pulled to the canapé table, what with its puff pastry, and sausagy, saucy, cheesy delights. I’ll eat more than I need or want and then I’ll rue. (See post for 10/10/08, where I brought this up the first time. Am I prescient or what??)

Anyway, I haven’t changed my eating habits yet. But, to quote George Costanza, "I am aware…"

And Applebees, I’m watching you, you son of a rich, buttery biscuit.