Laughable that fasting has been classified a “fad diet” on Wikipedia and by the NHS. Why? Because it is neither a fad nor a diet.

1. Fads are by definition short-lived crazes. In contrast, fasting has been intentionally practiced for many thousands of years in virtually all cultures and religions. Unintended fasting (having no food to eat) is the very foundation of how we survived as a species. Our DNA is built to expect regular periods of fasting. In human evolutionary terms, constancy of food consumption would be far better described as a modern “fad”.

2. A diet by definition is a set of foods commonly eaten. So in reality fasting is not even a diet. Fasting is an effective abstinence from eating for a limited period, not a prescribed set of foods commonly eaten.

The 5:2 diet does not specify particular foods to be eaten on either fasting or non fasting days. It, more accurately, is a closer matching of modern eating to what actually happens in nature.

The term “fad diet”, however, is very, very apt to describe the modern Western diet as recommended by various authorities, including the NHS. The low fat (and therefore high sugar) diet recommended by our authorities, together with the authorities’ active encouragement of consumption of highly processed foods, has led to a remarkable escalation in the diseases of modern civilisation – obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease.