Is Sugar Good or Bad? (Short answer: it’s neither)

If you believe the internet, sugar is either:

• Pure evil

  or

• Completely harmless

Both are wrong. And both extremes cause more damage than sugar itself ever could.

Let’s clear the noise and give you the grown-up answer.

Sugar isn’t poison. It’s food.

Sugar is a carbohydrate.

Carbohydrates are one of your body’s primary fuel sources.

Your brain literally runs on glucose.

If sugar were inherently “bad”, humans would not have survived long enough to invent sourdough, croissants, or lemon drizzle cake.

The real issue isn’t sugar.It’s your relationship with sugar.

Why sugar got such a bad reputation

Sugar became the villain for a few reasons:

• Diet culture needed a simple enemy

• “Cut this out” is easier to sell than “build balanced habits”

• Food fear drives clicks, books, programmes, and plans

• The more you fear a food, the more you obsess over it

So sugar was labelled:

Addictive, Toxic, Responsible for weight gain, The case of modern illness.

But when you look at actual evidence, things become much more nuanced.

What sugar actually does

Sugar on its own:

• Provides energy

• Raises blood glucose (as all carbs do)

• Tastes good

• Helps make food enjoyable

That’s it.

It does not:

• Automatically cause weight gain

• “Hijack” your brain

• Destroy your metabolism

• Make you lose control unless you’re already restricting it

Most problems blamed on sugar come from overall dietary patterns, not the presence of sugar itself.

The restriction → binge cycle

Here’s the part most people miss.

When you tell yourself:

“Sugar is bad, I must avoid it”

Your brain hears:

“This food is scarce and dangerous”

So when you eventually eat sugar (because you’re human), one of two things happens:

• You feel guilty

• You overeat it because “I’ve blown it now”

This is not a sugar problem.This is a psychology of restriction problem.

Ironically, people who allow sugar calmly and regularly tend to:

• Eat less of it overall

• Feel more in control

• Have fewer cravings

• Think about food less

But what about health?

This is where balance matters.

Too much of anything isn’t great:

• Too much sugar

• Too much alcohol

• Too much ultra-processed food

• Too little fibre

• Too few vegetables

The health impact comes from:

Your overall pattern, not individual ingredients

Someone who eats sugar alongside meals, gets fibre, protein, vegetables, and moves their body regularly is in a very different place to someone living on energy drinks and biscuits alone.

Sugar isn’t the issue.

Context is everything.

How to include sugar in a healthy way

This is where Scrummy differs from diet advice.

Instead of:

“Cut sugar out”

Try:

“Eat sugar like a calm, normal human”

That looks like:

• Having dessert without guilt

• Putting sugar in coffee if you enjoy it

• Eating chocolate without turning it into a binge

• Pairing sweet foods with meals rather than isolating them

• Letting sugar be ordinary instead of forbidden

When sugar loses its emotional power, it stops being a problem.

A practical example

Two approaches:

Diet mindset:

“I’ve been good all day, I’ll try not to eat sugar… oh no I ate a biscuit, I’ve ruined everything, might as well eat six.”

Scrummy mindset:

“I fancy a biscuit. I’ll have one with my tea and move on with my day.”

Guess which one leads to better long-term habits.

The real question isn’t “Is sugar bad?”

The real question is:

Do you trust yourself around food?

If the answer is no, removing sugar will not fix that.

It will usually make it worse.

Freedom, not restriction, is what creates calm eating.

Bottom line

Sugar is:

• Not a superfood

• Not a toxin

• Not the reason diets fail

Your relationship with food matters far more than any single ingredient.

And you don’t need another food to fear.

You need a way of eating that actually feels livable.

That’s the whole point of Scrummy.