Sarah Wilson, author and founder of I Quit Sugar movement, doesn’t believe in quick fixes for healthier living. But she has faith in a simple approach. “Achieving good health is certainly simpler than the palaver we’ve turned it into,” she says.
The “palaver” Sarah speaks of is the conflicting advice on nutrition and the number of “life-changing” wellness fads, including “superfoods” and “clean eating”, both of which she has previously deemed misnomers on her blog.
The problem lies in already discredited science. “A lot of today’s fads and myths come from faulty science in the 1960s that has since been dispelled, but the media and general population haven’t got the updated memo,” Sarah says.
She points out “calories in vs calories out” – the idea that we simply need to burn off more calories than we eat – as an example of such a myth, emphasising that nutrients matter more than calories as it’s possible to be overweight but still starve nutritionally.
“Nutritional science is very complex and rarely is it ‘gold standard’, so it’s very easy for a vested interest to put out a ‘study’ that shows just about anything you like – whether it’s ‘Butter is bad’ or ‘Butter is back’,” she explains.
While assessing the reliability of research may be difficult without a degree in nutritional science, Sarah believes a simple grandparent test applies.
“In many ways, the secret is to go back to how our grandparents lived and ate. Britain was at its healthiest during wartime rationing,” she adds.
Sarah is no stranger to the concept of wellness fads as that’s what critics called the I Quit Sugar movement she founded.
“It might seem ironic – or a touch hypocritical – that I should find myself pulling apart a bunch of food trends,” she says. “My response to the sceptics was always: ‘Surely the past 50 years of adding sugar to 80% of our foodstuffs is the passing trend versus millions of years of sugar-free diet?’”
“It turns out, of course, that this ‘diet’ had scientific legs, with the World Health Organisation recognising sugar as a toxin and the UK government in March 2016 acknowledging the ‘overwhelming’ science warranted a sugar tax on sugary drinks.”
IQuitSugar.com is now Australia’s largest health and wellness site, and the I Quit Sugar eight-week programme has helped switch 1.2 million people around the world off the white stuff. In addition to advocating cutting down on sugar, Sarah is also an ambassador of toxin-free living and reducing food waste.
In her exclusive masterclass with the Guardian, she will look at what works and what doesn’t work in food and diet trends, from slow cooking to intermittent fasting. She will also share tips on how to cut down your weekly food bill and what to order when eating out.
Sarah’s nutrition tips: Three small changes to make to your diet today
- Eat full fat. When manufacturers take the fat out of a product, they have to replace it with something for texture and taste – mostly it’s sugar, often it’s nasty additives. The end result is a far more unhealthy food – and often more fattening.
- Avoid sauces, such as condiments, shop-bought pasta sauces, gravies and dressings. A good adage is: if your grandmother can’t identify what’s on the plate, avoid it. So a good roast at the pub – meat and three veg – or Greek food are great options, while Thai food, for example, is often full of sugar.
- Quit sugar. When you quit sugar, you quit processed food – it’s as simple as that. It’s the easiest guiding tool for good eating.
Join Sarah for her masterclass on navigating food and diet trends at Kings Place in London at 7pm-9pm on Thursday 15 June.
