People are undoubtedly attracted to salt, sugar, and fat. Those three things make food taste better, even though they exist rarely in nature. But eating highly processed foods is not a healthy way to obtain salt, sugar, and fat, because the foods themselves have too much sugar, too much salt, and too much fat - and very little useful nutrients. It's a toxic overload of salt, sugar, and fat. In addition, the foods contain a bunch of industrial food additives to maintain "freshness" on the shelf longer.
Sugar Cravings
Instead of hiding sugar in sugary beverages and sugar-laden foods (which may or may not taste sweet at all), I think it's best to just eat sugar. Just take a pinch of sugar and sprinkle it into your mouth. The main purpose of this exercise is to get you to think how much sugar you are consuming instead of mindlessly shoving in sugar into your mouth.
Another way is to eat whole fruits. Instead of an orange-flavored soda or an orange-flavored cupcake, you should just eat an orange. Be sure to check the price. If the price of soda or cupcake is higher than the price of one orange, then you should use the price and your budget to control how many oranges you can spend and completely ignore the soda or cupcake. You can also pick a different fruit that is on sale during that time. If the orange happens to be cheaper than the soda or cupcake, then that just gives you a financial reason to buy the whole fruit over the processed food. Now, if fruits are not sweet enough for you because your palate only likes super-sweet artificial sweeteners, then you should pick up some artificial sweeteners at a public place and just sprinkle them in your mouth. The main purpose is to get you to pay attention to the amount of sugar you are consuming instead of hiding the sugar in foods and drinks and then mindlessly consuming the sugary foods and beverages.
Salt Cravings
One way to curb your salt cravings is to eat salt. Yes, salt. Just sprinkle a little bit of salt in your mouth whenever you experience a craving. It's going to be much cheaper than buying salty foods, because you can find little salt packages for free in restaurants. No one cares if you just take one or two packs to satisfy a salt craving.
Alternatively, you may have raw celery sticks with peanut butter. It is possible to make your own home-made peanut butter with just peanuts, but in case you buy a pound of peanut butter in a jar from the grocery store, you should select "natural peanut butter", as that kind has no hydrogenated oils. Natural peanut butter is typically above $2, but I have seen it on sale for $1 per 1-pound jar in my area. The celery itself has sodium content, and the peanut butter may contain salt and thus taste salty.
Fat Cravings
One way to satisfy your fat cravings is to buy an avocado and dig in. The avocado is so fatty that it's going to make you sick of eating fat. Hopefully, it will teach you a lesson by positive punishment (psychology) so you will not crave fats anymore. The main idea is to watch what you eat, and if you eat what you hate, you will definitely pay attention to it.
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What if you don't crave sugar and salt? Lol
Then you're healthy. Food cravings are not good. They mean that one is addicted to food or too easily tempted by food. You can't be tempted by food, but rather learn to control your desires and gratify them at a later time. Now, if your brain chemistry incessantly tells you that you are starving when you already ate, then you need to fix that up, because doing so will dissolve future food cravings. You are supposed to eat when you are full, but for people suffering from metabolic syndrome, they can't detect fullness normally.