May I be excused?

It's 4 p.m. and, no, you can't have a cookie. Or ice cream. Or potato chips.

Why not?

Mom and Grandma both say "because you'll spoil your dinner."

It's a truth that's been passed down through the generations since the invention of between-meal snacks. Eating before dinner makes you un-hungry for dinner and then you get in trouble and end up having to sit at the table through The Cosby Show because you're still trying to clean your plate.

It's interesting to pause and note that between-meal snacks were a factor in instigating the French Revolution. The aristocrats spent a lot of their free time (and all they had was time) bragging to the hungry masses about their fresh croissants and assorted pastries. The rest is history.

Anyway, it was bound to happen that some ambitious and shady American doctor would eventually put a name, label and price on the dinner-spoiling industry. As seen on TV, that doctor's creation is the Full Bar.

Advertised as being "inspired by weight loss surgery principles," Full Bar is supposedly a natural way to help you lose weight by making you eating less. Brilliantly, the product's Web site notes that "when you feel full, you eat less." So, if you fill up part of your stomach before mealtime, your stomach will fill with less food at mealtime.

If I was at all a responsible kind of person, I would have put that whole paragraph in quotes, except for the sarcastic bits, but I'm simply laughing too much to bother.

A minuscule amount of research as uncovered three facts about Full Bar:

1. It's made of natural ingredients, which include puffed wheat cereal and sugar.
2. Full Bar contains no nutritional value, appetite suppressants or fat burners.
3. 24 Full Bars will cost you $50. Plus shipping.

It seems that we've had this whole "weight loss" phenomenon all wrong! It's not about how much you eat, or even what you eat. It's not about ingredients or will power or calories or carbs or sugar or vitamins or exercise. Turns out, it's all about timing your eating properly. Would you believe that if you eat one of these expensive non-nutritional snacks 30 minutes before you eat dinner, you won't be as hungry for dinner?

Of course you believe it! You were raised to believe it.

Mom, Grandma and the French have been right all along. They should get some royalties out of this.

So, I take it back ... Have a cookie. Have some ice cream. Have a Full Bar. Knock yourself out, and watch the pounds melt away.