Journalist Michael Moss went behind enemy lines. He learned the secrets the processed food industry uses to keep us hooked.

Most of us know that we should stay away from processed foods, and those sugary processed drinks, but they're just so hard to resist.

"The food that we hate to love and that we're so tempted by, and will overeat, is a problem. And the solution is gaining control of it.," Moss said.

He's a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist for The New York Times. He infiltrated America's largest processed food companies, like Kraft, Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Nestle and General Mills.

In his book, Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, he exposes how they addicted us.

"They got big by making products that are utterly irresistible to people, both in taste, but also ultra-convenient that will sit on the shelf and be waiting for you until you're ready to eat them. And also incredibly low cost,"  he said.

They may be low cost at the checkout line, but we pay dearly later on, with our health and lost productivity. Doctors trace our obesity epidemic back to processed foods, and so do the people making those products.

"The startling thing is that the food industry has known for years and years that it's at least partly responsible for that," he said.

Processed foods kill with staggering amounts of salt, sugar, usually high fructose corn syrup, and fat, mostly trans fat, also known as hydrogenated oil.

"I don't view the food industry as some evil empire that intentionally sought to make us obese or otherwise ill," he explained. "The issue is, kind-of their collective zeal to do what companies do, which is to make as much money as possible by selling as much product as possible."