Day 025 - 16 Sep 94 - Page 21
1 level.
2
3 So, for instance, a serving of beef, as McDonald's said in
4 this ad, is three ounces. The average serving of beef to
5 most people is much greater than that, I believe. Four
6 ounces is a relatively small piece of beef. But that is,
7 as I said, an attainable or a goal for attaining; they are
8 trying to encourage Americans to move towards smaller
9 pieces, servings, of meat. A three ounce slice of beef,
10 therefore, assuming the quarter pounder to indeed contain
11 a quarter pound of beef, is smaller than the amount of
12 beef in the quarter pounder, for instance.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The answer seems to be that it is not an
15 expression which immediately means something to every
16 American?
17 A. I doubt it, your Lordship. It is a term of art that
18 is defined by the Federal Government when they came out
19 with these guidelines, the food groups, and it appears
20 that McDonald's has used the federal guidelines. But what
21 a serving means to an individual is by no means uniform
22 throughout the country.
23
24 MR. RAMPTON: In fact, your Lordship is almost 100 per cent
25 right, though we will ask other American witnesses, if we
26 remember to do so. The middle of column 3 on page 103,
27 the only one which has an actual amount is meat, poultry
28 fish or eggs. You could guess at the servings of bread,
29 I suppose.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
32
33 MR. RAMPTON: Not very easily for the rest of it.
34
35 Mr. Gardner, can we turn on in your coloured brochure to
36 -- page 114, my Lord, of the bundle -- the advertisement
37 about cholesterol. That is the one. I take it we can
38 agree that that instrument depicted on that page is a
39 basket for frying potatoes in, or something like that?
40 A. That appears to be, yes, sir.
41
42 Q. Perhaps you can deduce that from the fact that, at any
43 rate, one of the items given some prominence on this first
44 page of the advertisement are the french fries. That is
45 right, is it not? You see the third paragraph?
46 A. I see it, yes.
47
48 Q. Also one must assume that Chicken McNuggetts,
49 fillet-o-fish and pies might go into a basket, something
50 like that, I suppose?
51 A. Yes.
52
53 Q. That is not what I want to ask you about. You see that
54 the saturated fat content and the cholesterol content of
55 the french fries are both specified on that page?
56 A. Yes.
57
58 Q. The front page?
59 A. Yes.
60
