Absolutely no offense taken, Karen! There's a tremendous amount of
misinformation on the Internet, as well as valid information. So it's always a good idea to check it out on your own.
As for food manufacturers engineering food to appeal to us with huge quantities of fat, sugar, and salt, you have to check out
David Kessler's The End of Overeating. He's the former head of the FDA and did extensive research into how restaurants and food producers deliberately craft high calorie foods that are designed to get us to eat more than we need (and that NO ONE should be eating!)
Did you know that food manufacturers produce about 1000 extra calories of food per day per person in the United States? Of course, then they have to figure out a way to get us to consume all these excess calories. It's actually quite infuriating to know that restaurants and corporations are more interested in profits than in health and social costs, considering the tremendous obesity problem we have in this country.
You're so right that knowledge is power and the more we can educate ourselves about the foods we're eating, the more successful we'll be.
And if I was going to have a splurge meal? It wouldn't be at IHOP.