The recent column "Is sugar the new tobacco?" by Ari LeVaux makes multiple inaccurate assertions linking all-natural sugar to serious health outcomes like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and fatty liver disease, among others.
But Mr. LeVaux did get one thing right. The Sugar Association firmly believes that any advice that leads the American public to believe there is a link between a dietary component and serious disease outcomes should only be made when significant scientific agreement exists. And regarding natural sugar, it does not. In fact, we would be interested to see what scientific support Mr. LeVaux used to write his article.
To the contrary, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show that U.S. per-capita consumption of real sugar (sucrose) is 34 percent lower now than it was 40 years ago, while over the same period obesity and other metabolic diseases started to rise.
Regarding Mr. LeVaux's claim that sugar is addictive, the answer is simple: There is currently no evidence that a single nutritional substance can elicit a substance use disorder in humans, as determined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-5 criteria.
The science just does not support Mr. LeVaux's assertions and this type of scare-mongering does readers of the Detroit Metro Times a serious disservice.
Andy Briscoe
President and CEO
The Sugar Association
Our intern Nicholas Bitoni wrote a spirited blog post about a jerk who sat behind him at the public dress rehearsal for Frida. It caused quite a stir.
Reader "Adam" says: Quick question. Why didn't you just turn around and tell them to shut the f*** up? Could it be because you are a whiny little coward?
You went home from the opera all butt hurt that you didn't have the balls to tell these guys to keep quiet, or at least tell an usher what they were doing, and you channeled all your impotent rage into this Michigan- and Detroit-bashing piece-of-crap blog post.
Just so you know, obnoxious hipsters are not Detroit's biggest problem. Crime, poverty, a ruined school system, and crumbling infrastructure all rate much higher on the list of Detroit's problems than a couple of pain-in-the-butt hipsters ruining your precious night at the opera.
In fact, the bigger problem than douchebags hipsters are the folks out there who aren't willing to lift a finger to do anything to change things for the better. You know, doing something like telling some rowdy jerks to shut the f*** up at the opera.
P.S. If you don't like Detroit, the way we talk, or the food we eat, go someplace else. More than a few people around here bought their homes selling that Detroit-style pizza you seem to dislike so much.
P.P.S. I commented on your D&D post last week, praising you for writing such a positive article. I had no idea then that you are such a Michigan-hating jerk.
Reader "Jamie" says: Honestly, anyone who doesn't totally get this article/rant is not someone who attends the arts. You don't turn around and yell, "Shut the f*** up" during an opera. This isn't Transformers 10. Doing so would have made him as much of a problem as the douchebags. Sounds like a lot of the commenters saw themselves in his rant. Not as the one being bothered, but as the ones doing the bothering. Maybe they are the type of people who check their phone in a darkened theater, or open loud packages of candy.
I think it's so funny how 25-year-old hipsters seem to think they invented Detroit. When they haven't done shit for it, except walk around spouting everything they've done. You can tell by Adam's comment that he is one of these people. Where in this article do you get the impression that the author "hates Detroit"? I got exactly the opposite feeling. Saying that hipster douchebags (my words, not his) are what is wrong with this city is 100 percent true. And just because you don't like the obnoxious behavior of a certain type of person — yes, I am generalizing but in my experience Detroit hipsters are a special kind of annoying — doesn't mean you don't love the city that they think is their own. The truth is most haven't been alive long enough to have experienced anything. Brava to you sir. Brava!
Disclaimer: I really don't enjoy the Metro Times, this article was posted somewhere else. So please keep all your "Metro Times-loving-so-and-so" to yourself.
