As always, it’s your choice.

But whilst limiting our intake of high-sugar, nutrient-poor foods (like confectionary, soft drinks, biscuits and cakes) is obviously important for good health, there are 2 things to be aware of if you choose to quit sugar all together.

First, sugar doesn’t automatically make a food unhealthy. No one became overweight from a banana or an apple, and a small amount of added sugar to a nutritious food doesn’t suddenly make it bad. A teaspoon of sugar can help make the medicine go down.

Second, being low in sugar doesn’t automatically make a food healthy. After all, potato chips are low in sugar, and a sugar-free brownie is still a brownie.

Indeed, foods are an array of different fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and more. Their health effect is based on the combined role of each of these, not just the presence or absence of one.

Using a single nutrient can therefore play a role when comparing two otherwise similar foods, but never in judging the healthiness of a whole food or diet alone. 

This concept holds true for not just sugar, but for calories, carbohydrates, fat, fructose, glycemic index, protein, saturated fat and more.

Understand this, and you’ll understand why a lot of fad diets are indeed just fads.