Every year the average American eats 33 pounds of cheese and 70 pounds of sugar. On average, 11 percent of our diet comes from saturated fats. Every day we eat 8,500 milligrams of salt—that's four whopping teaspoons of salt. In his book Salt Sugar Fat, Michael Moss shows that during the past two decades some of America's largest food producers carefully studied how to "help" us crave all this junk food. For example, some of the food industries biggest names--including Cambell Soup, General Foods, Kraft, PepsiCo, and Cadbury--hired "crave consultants" like the scientist Dr. Howard Moskowitz to help them determine our "bliss points," the point where food compainies can "optimize" our cravings.

Or as another example, Frito-Lay, makers of Lay's potato chips and the 21 varieties of Cheetos, operated a research complex near Dallas that employed nearly 500 chemists, psychologists, and technicians and spent up to $30 million a year to find the bliss point for their junk foods. One food scientist called Cheetos "one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure." Cheetos has what's called "vanishing caloric density." In other words because it melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there's no calories in it, and you think you can just keep eating forever.

Interestingly, many of the former executives who Moss interviewed for his book avoid the foods they tried to get us to eat. Howard Moskowitz doesn't drink Pepsi products because he claims "[soda's] not good for your teeth." A Frito-Lay executive admitted to Moss that he avoids most processed foods—like Cheetos. Moss concluded, "Like other former food company executives I met, [this Frito-Lay executive] overhauled his diet to avoid the very foods he once worked so hard to perfect."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Temptation, Desire—There are powerful forces at work trying to shape, direct, and distort our desires towards things and habits that aren't good for our bodies, souls, or minds. (2) Gluttony; Fasting—This story can illustrate why it's hard to fast and easy to be gluttonous in our culture. (3) False Teaching—Sometimes false teachers promulgate doctrine and views of the world that even they can't live by. (4) The Lord's Supper; Eucharist—Christ doesn't offer us junk food; he offers us real food for our souls that will truly satisfy.