Day 269 - 25 Jun 96 - Page 67
1 situation in any respect. Because what we are looking at
2 is the contribution the saturated fats might make in some
3 to the risk of heart disease. I think that what one is
4 saying here is that a single meal will provide a certain
5 amount of saturated fats and can you, from that, say if
6 there is a risk associated with either 35 or 70%, can you
7 say what contribution that might make? Whether or not it
8 meets the daily recommendations of this committee or not is
9 immaterial.
10
11 Q. I think I can make a suggestion, Professor Crawford, in
12 view of the fact that you have said in your latest paper
13 that you calculate that the McDonald's meal will contribute
14 7th or at least 14th of the week's saturated fat intake?
15 A. Yes.
16
17 Q. If I can make a suggestion, If you multiply 28 grammes (it
18 is actually 28.33) by 7 and it is daily intake, you get a
19 figure of 198, just over?
20 A. Yes.
21
22 Q. 6.32 grammes, which is the contribution made by this
23 McDonald's meal that week, is 3 per cent of the total for
24 that week?
25 A. Yes.
26
27 Q. Even if your recommendation is down to 5 per cent, it is
28 still only a 6 per cent contribution?
29 A. Yes but, the point you have to understand is that all
30 the evidence indicates that these factors are additive.
31
32 Q. You cannot sensibly propose can you, and I must lock horns
33 with you over this, that a McDonald's meal could
34 conceivably make a seventh or a fourteenth contribution
35 towards the weekly saturated fat recommendation?
36 A. I am not talking about saturated fat recommendation.
37 I am talking about the total saturated fat intake and these
38 are two different phenomenon. They are two different
39 animals completely. The recommendation is what the
40 committee comes up with. What you eat in practice is a
41 totally different phenomenon and what I am saying in the
42 general framework of what people eat, this is going to make
43 contribution of X per cent, to their either weekly or daily
44 intake of saturate fats and therefore based on the
45 relationships which Ancel Keyes and others have produced
46 and I am only saying -- I am not trying to make a major
47 issue out of this as an absolutely accurate and precise
48 statement because I have said already that if you really
49 wanted to get into the numbers game, it is going to require
50 a very large research programme to do it. But if you want
51 to look at what people do in practice, then the
52 contribution within the population of those that are at
53 risk to mortality from heart disease is in that population,
54 this is the contributions that you are going to likely find
55 in practice. These are very different to recommendations.
56
57 Q. Can you think of any fat that does not contain saturated
58 fatty acids?
59 A. Yes. I mean, I cannot think of any fat which contains
60 absolutely no saturated fatty acid, but I can think of
