Day 298 - 11 Nov 96 - Page 32


     
     1
     2   MS. STEEL:   Right.  By a community trust, and that her job
     3        involved working with people in primary health care -- GPs,
     4        nurses, et cetera -- giving them advice on how to prevent
     5        coronary heart disease and any other diet related diseases,
     6        and she had been a qualified dietician since 1977.
     7
     8        She stated that in her opinion an average McDonald's meal
     9        is high in fat, saturated fat found in animal products,
    10        sugar and sodium, or sugar and salt, and it is low in fibre
    11        and some vitamins, which could lead to diseases such as
    12        heart disease and certain cancers.
    13
    14        She went on to say that the company's own nutritional data
    15        demonstrated that the food was too high in fat, according
    16        to the UK government official guidelines and expert reports
    17        from around the world such as the World Health Organisation
    18        report on diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic
    19        diseases.  That was on page 4, from line 12.
    20
    21        There is an error in the transcript on that page.  The
    22        thing about too high in fat has come out as 'too high in
    23        fact'.
    24
    25   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think I will get the obvious ones.  If you
    26        think there is a subtle one that might mislead me, tell me.
    27
    28   MS. STEEL:   She went into the meal combinations which are found
    29        in 'Good Food, Nutrition and McDonald's' and said that meal
    30        combination one, which was Big Mac, large french fries,
    31        apple pie and regular Cola, came out at 1,283 kilocalories,
    32        64.4 grams of fat, which worked out at 579.6 kilocalories,
    33        or 45 percent of calories from fat, and 1,488 milligrams of
    34        sodium.  And that meal combination two, which was
    35        hamburger, regular french fries and milk provided 707
    36        kilocalories and 35.1 grams of fat, which worked out at
    37        315.9 kilocalories from fat or 45 percent of the calories
    38        coming from fat.
    39
    40        She explained the method of obtaining the amount of
    41        kilocalories from grams of fat was to multiply the grams by
    42        nine times, since one gram of fat equals nine
    43        kilocalories.  Both of those meals came out as 45 percent
    44        of calories from fat, which she reminded you the UK
    45        government recommends a maximum of 35 percent of energy as
    46        fat, which she said was much lower than a typical
    47        McDonald's meal of 45 percent fat.  Page 50.
    48
    49        She went on to say that the UK government fat
    50        recommendations are moderate compared to other
    51        international reports such as World Health Organisation,
    52        which recommends 15 to 30 percent of energy as fat
    53        maximum.  Actually, there is another transcript error there
    54        because it came out at 35 percent, or it is possible that
    55        she said 35 percent meaning 30 percent.  Later on she does
    56        say 30 percent.  We do know that is the figure that the
    57        World Health Organisation recommend as a maximum.  She
    58        explained that the UK government target of 35 percent was
    59        an arbitrary figure which was picked out because the
    60        government decided they might be able to achieve that.  In

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