Day 037 - 14 Oct 94 - Page 25
1 A. Yes.
2
3 Q. They have the saturated fat content, is that correct,
4 page 36, yes?
5 A. I do not go as far as 36.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, you will not; we have bundle numbers in
8 advance of yours. You are about 10 behind. It will be
9 about 26, page 26?
10 A. Yes, indeed.
11
12 MR. MORRIS: We are not concerned with the levels of fat. That
13 is another matter. But it does include the saturated fat
14 content in this particular pamphlet; is that correct?
15 A. It is correct, yes.
16
17 Q. So, what is the problem in this particular document that
18 you can see regarding the saturated fat expression?
19 A. The way that the saturated fat is expressed, I suppose
20 one has to be grateful for small mercies to see that there
21 are figures given here. Simply, it is pretty
22 meaningless. I mean -----
23
24 Q. What is the standard way?
25 A. Well, the easiest way really for ordinary people to
26 understand what is high-in-fat than something else is to
27 express it as a percentage of calories. That gives you a
28 jolly good rule of thumb really, so you can compare one
29 food against another or, indeed, one type of food against
30 another. It is a convention that is very widely adopted
31 and it is not used here.
32
33 Q. When you said the figures were meaningless, does that mean
34 to the public?
35 A. Yes, essentially meaningless. I do not know the
36 intended distribution of this particular leaflet, but I
37 would have thought to an ordinary person perusing this the
38 figures would mean very little. The advantage in the
39 other method of expression is actually that it is quite
40 dramatic. You know, if you are genuinely and sincerely
41 interested in conveying meaningful health information to
42 ordinary people, then to express your calories as a
43 percentage of -- your fat as a percentage of calories can
44 actually produce some remarkable figures, like 75 per cent
45 fat, that sort of thing.
46
47 That is the sort of dramatic figure that is possible to
48 obtain. That kind of figure, therefore, means more to
49 ordinary people than just adding 9.9 grammes of fat, 13.6
50 grammes of fat, 5 grammes of saturated fat. For anybody
51 who knows anything about recipes, and I assume most female
52 purchasers of these products would to some extent, these
53 are very small amounts; 5 grammes is nothing; 28.35
54 grammes comprise one ounce. So we are talking about small
55 amounts here. It is all too easy to say, "It is just 5
56 grammes here, 6.7 grammes there. That is nothing". If
57 the information is given much more dramatically in the
58 convention that is much more widely adopted as
59 percentage----.
60
