Yes. The single most important thing you can do for your health is to never again in your life consume a slice of white bread, bowl of sugary cereal, glass of orange juice, or can of soda. High glycemic index carbohydrates kill.
Cut back on red meats, butter and other sources of saturated fat.
Nonsense. There were two or three small studies back in the 50's that showed an increased risk of heart disease from saturated fat, but they did not control for sugar. People who shoveled in donuts were killing themselves with sugar, but the fat got blamed. It has become the nutritional equivalent of an old wives' tale. Eat all the saturated fat you want, as long as you are active enough to burn off the calories. It's harmless.
Trans-fats are another matter, however. Biochemically, they are a lot farther down the path to manufacturing bad forms of cholesterol. Telling people to give up butter for margarine was perhaps the single worst piece of advice the nutrition nannies ever gave to the American public, which is really saying something.
Also, dietary cholesterol is meaningless to blood cholesterol. I eat almost nothing but meat, eggs, and lots of unprocessed vegetables, and my cholesterol level has never been lower nor my good-to-bad cholesterol ratio higher, since the very first time it was measured.
Lay off the salt shaker.
Good advice if you are already hypertensive, otherwise useless. There is no evidence that salt restriction improves the health of normotensive people, and some evidence that it is harmful.
Eat plenty of fruits and veggies.
Good advice. Veggies more than fruit, though, and lay off the sugary high-glycemic index tropical and citrus fruits. Instead, eat berries and stone fruits.
And don't worry about having an egg and an extra cup of coffee with your breakfast.
Good advice.
For much more on this topic, read Gary Taubes' book, "Why We Get Fat."