Cat in Japan

One side effect of cutting out all sugars: now _everything_ tastes too sweet, even if it has only a little bit of sugar!

I think some such diets get a bit misleading, especially as this keeps getting abbreviated from "no added sugar" to "no sugar." It is a great idea if you find you have a dependence on sweets, or are not very good at paying attention to what you actually eat, and I've certainly agree that shifting the balance of where a person's calories come from can make it easier to eat less.

But it also risk being penny wise and pound foolish. There isn't much need to worry about a small amount of sugar added to canned food (it is there often as a preservative, to cut down on the amount salt used as more people watch sodium intake). Or worrying about if a small amount of sugar was added to your mixed drink, when the alcohol probably has far more calories in it. And at the same time, I've know a couple people who drink so much juice, they are drinking more sugar daily than I got from soda as a teenager. Or some who eat large amounts of pasta and bread without much else balance things out or help cut back proportions.

Too much of anything is bad. Sugar is essential to life. Your body breaks down complex carbohydrates into sugar because that's what makes your cells work. Don't eat too much and don't worry about sugar.