Rachael Ray: Rachael's Daytime Talkshow

Could You Cure Your Sweet Tooth in 3 Days?

Aired on: July 21, 2011

If you've always fancied having a bit of a sweet tooth, you're not alone! "The average American consumes 33 teaspoons of sugar every day - that's 155 pounds of sugar per person per year," says Dr. Fred Pescatore, author of The Hamptons Diet. The figures are staggering, but Dr. Fred says he has a three-day sugar detox program that could help you cure you of your sweet tooth:

Day 1: Eliminate all of the obvious sugars: the cake, the candy, the cookies, the ice cream - all the stuff that you know has sugar.
Day 2: Eliminate the simple carbohydrates, the things that turn into sugar in your body: white bread, white pasta, fruit juice and sodas. "So many people get a lot of their sugar in the wasted calories [of fruit juices and sodas]," Dr. Fred explains.
Day 3: Learn how to read food labels and get rid of fruit. "You have to read the labels because it'll say 'high fructose corn syrup' or 'sugar,'" Dr. Fred says, adding, "even those sugar-free products have something in there to sweeten them, so you really have to be careful with those." When it comes to fruit, the doctor says many people are unaware of the high sugar content: "The average banana has six teaspoons of sugar - and that's America's favorite fruit!"

When beginning the 3-Day Sugar Detox, Dr. Fred warns that you have to have realistic expectations. "You just have to realize it's going to be difficult because we can't escape sugar," he says. "It will be a challenge, but once you get through those three days, your body starts to readjust your metabolism. So instead of using the sugar for energy, it uses the other foods that you feed it for energy. It also utilizes the fat cells that you have for energy."

Dr. Fred explains the overall goal to his program. "I think what we should do is really try to eliminate sugar as much as possible and use it as it was originally meant to be used; sugar was so expensive when it was first sort of produced and cultivated and it was a treat. It wasn’t something that people had every day, but now we have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So I think that people can absolutely eat sugar in moderation ... you know, half the times when we're eating sugar it's not even good, it just happens to be sitting there!"

Watch the video above to see how self-proclaimed sugar addict Emily, 23, does when she tries to go without sugar for three days!