A liking for sweet things is something humans share with many creatures in the animal kingdom.

There are four basic tastes - bitter, sweet, salty, and sour - and our taste buds can recognize only these four. When we place food into our mouths, the taste buds send signals to the brain, which then distinguishes among the various shades of tastes, leaving you with a distinct taste for that food item.

The first taste a human infant is able to detect is sweet, which can be recognized almost at birth. (A taste for salt doesn’t develop until about age 4 months.) Conditioning for sweets begins almost immediately for many infants. Though mothers’ milk is not sweet, many mothers resort to formulas and then to commercially available baby foods, which contain sugars and added carbohydrates.

Now days there is added sugar in some form in nearly every processed food on the shelves: from ketchup to breakfast cereals, even the unsweetened ones. It is estimated that Americans consume about 125 grams of sucrose daily and about 70 grams of fructose, or fruit sugar, per day. Since the mid - 1800s, our consumption of sugar has increased more than half. This excessive amount of sugar is being linked with the rise in obesity, diabetes, and other diseases. And the desire for sugar remains strong: in fact, manufacturers add sugar because it enhances the flavor of the food and it leaves you wanting more: it is addictive.

Elimination of sugar cravings often is the catalyst for a successful weight loss and maintenance program. Withdrawal from sugar automatically reduces caloric intake and, if you have a yeast infection, it is critical to successfully eradicating that condition as well.

Ridding the body of sugar’s toxicity leads to increased energy, which promotes exercise. It also allows you to more easily identify any food allergies or intolerance’s you may be experiencing, as a sugar dependency can mask these food-related problems.

Sugar cravings have also been linked with serotonin levels: a low level of this hormone is associated with increased cravings. Foods that help raise serotonin levels include starchy complex carbohydrates such as potatoes and whole-grain cereals and pastas, and foods that slowly release their energy into the bloodstream, such as apples and popcorn.