Sugar. It's been labelled "deadly", "addictive", "toxic", "sweet poison" and blamed for the rise in global obesity in recent years." Get rid of the white toxin from your diet and you'll free up your body to drop those excess kilos" (or so say anti-sugar campaigners Sarah Wilson, David Gillespie and Robert Lustig). Here are the three real reasons why I believe quitting sugar helps you lose weight.

The question in full:

Q. I have a hiatus hernia and have trouble keeping food down. I feel full after a few mouthfuls and find I get bloated and tummy cramps. Any suggestions?

Meeting up at the bar or pub? Sharing a drink with friends? These are the times when you notice salty snacks everywhere – potato crisps, corn chips, beer nuts, cashews, pretzels and rice cracker snacks. Salty snacks fly under the radar – no one remembers eating them. Yet they’re a big problem for health and may explain why you can’t lose weight. Here’s my take on them.

The theory behind detox diets is that we can 'cleanse' and 'purify' our body by removing 'wastes' and eliminating 'toxins' (which are never defined). This will supposedly get the bowel working efficiently and rejuvenate the liver, based on the underlying naturopathic concept that your health will improve once your digestive tract is working correctly. How true it all this?

Detox diets and detox 'cleansing' kits are big sellers. They promise lots of things - to purify the body, remove 'wastes' and eliminate 'toxins' (which are never really defined) and rejuvenate the liver. They say they can improve a sluggish digestion, revitalise the skin and boost your energy. Detox has become so accepted in our time-poor, instant world that many people embark on one whenever they've overdone the excesses of life and feel the need to refresh and revitalise. After Christmas is a classic time.

I reviewed the diet book Eat Right for Your Type by US naturopathic physician Peter D'Adamo in 2009. It was part of the premium, paid content of the Foodwatch site at the time. Since then, the book has become a bestseller with its promise of helping you avoid infections, lose weight, fight life-threatening diseases and slow ageing. So I've decided to make my review available to all Foodwatch readers. 

The Fast Diet by Dr Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer

I recently happened to watch dietitian Matt O’Neill comment on the new Fast Diet (aka the 5:2 Diet) on morning TV. It caught my attention not only for Matt’s usual easy-to-grasp explanation but also for the book’s simplicity and lack of a set ‘diet formula’. So when I received a copy in the post, I thought it was time for a review. 

With their bright colours and pack shots of root vegetables, they scream "healthier snack". But are vegetable chips really better? We did a taste test side by side of two brands of vegetable chips and line them up against your standard salted potato crisp to see how they fare.