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Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor, April 6, 2018: Our love of sugar is ruining our health

Richmond Times-Dispatch - 4/7/2018

Our love of sugar

is ruining our health

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

The average American consumes between 150 and 175 pounds of refined white sugar every year. The pioneers of the 18th century consumed an average of five pounds per year. There is absolutely no nutritional value in refined sugar and it causes or contributes widely to a myriad of chronic diseases.

The cost of treating chronic diseases takes up 70 percent of this nation's entire health care expenditures. Type 2 diabetes is a national scourge, preventing millions from enjoying a normal lifestyle and the peace of mind that attends. They live in fear of having their legs cut off, then going blind, and finally dying in misery and pain. This process takes an average of 20 years and over its course, incurs incredible medical expenses that have to be paid by someone, very often the general public.

If sugar is so bad, why do people continue to consume it in such vast quantities? The main reason is that it tastes good. In fact, it's delicious. Who doesn't like Grandma's apple pie just out of the oven or a double scoop of strawberry ice cream?

The sugar lobby spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year promoting this all-American product while hiding the truth of its effects from the general public.

And finally, there's the Grandma lobby. Try telling a grandmother she's poisoning her progeny with the cupcakes, candy bars, and puddings she's foisting on them and she'll slam you over the head with her purse.

My lifelong plea: Grandma, please try a fresh peach or a bowl of cherries.

Thomas F. Kistner.

Bealeton.

We're focusing on building the wrong kind of wall

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

The U.S. does need a wall to keep out illegal entry - not a physical wall, but a super-cyber wall. A physical wall deters entry in physical places. A cyber wall deters entry from all over the world.

Look at the threats we are fighting today: political disturbances via data break-ins and manipulation, utility interruptions, masses of data theft and fraud to companies and individuals. No physical wall can touch this.

We need to focus on the current world-threat capabilities by boosting our national electronic systems and security. Building a wall on a piece of a border is outdated thinking and not even close to a solution for the massive destructive power of cyber interference.

Carol Martin.

Henrico.

What this crisis needs is Democratic votes

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

In the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting, impassioned youths have taken to every available forum to demand action. Countless lectures from breathless TV talking heads, print columnists, and social media mavens are laced with slanderous accusations and histrionics - but precious few specifics.

More gun laws will create more criminals, not safer citizens. And yet there is one common thread that permeates all of this sanctimonious commentary. A meme, repeated ad nauseam by everyone associated with the anti-gun movement - that's the consensus from the left is that there is only one way to prevent future mass shooting: Vote for Democrats.

What was that Rahm Emanuel meant about a crisis?

Tom Eaton.

Chesterfield.

This is all we've got

to fight addiction?

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

President Trump's addiction agenda seems more like a dog-and-pony show than real action. As a veteran struggling with addiction, I was hoping for more from our leader than merely exploiting a grieving family as a stepping stone for help with his re-election.

My first issue is that the president didn't mention giving aid to recovery programs, such as the McShin Foundation and R.I.S.E., that have proven time and again to reduce recidivism and criminal activity.

My second issue is that building a wall that covers only a small part of our borders will stop nothing. What about the coastlines and the Canadian border?

America has the highest incarceration rate of all the countries. Many U.S. inmates are untreated addicts and mental health cases. What are the short-term plans to reach the long-term goals of ending addiction and criminal activity? Many addicts commit crimes to feed their addictions.

Programs like McShin are imperative to rebuilding lives. They teach us ways of managing and fighting addiction. If all we have to look forward to is executions, high fines, and a wall to stop addiction, then I am highly disappointed that this is the farthest we have come to solving a problem we've been fighting for a long time. I hope and pray we can come up with better solutions.

Timothy G. Covington.

Richmond.

The kids are protesting because adults won't

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

In your editorial, "Exploited activism," you contrasted the youthful protests of earlier years with the marches of recent weeks by claiming "in decades past, young people always marched to expand America's civil rights. On Saturday, they marched to take rights away." The right to life is one of the essential guarantees on which we Americans base our Constitution and laws.

The children aren't trying to take anything from anyone. They're trying to save their own lives and the lives of others. The kids have to do it because the adults are failing to do it for them. Shame on you for exacerbating an already terrible situation.

Roger Longest.

Richmond.