Day 032 - 06 Oct 94 - Page 42


     
     1        means of trying to balance this type of meal and end up
     2        with anything approaching a government's recommended
     3        intake levels.
     4
     5        Now, I am not claiming that, of course, this meal is eaten
     6        every day; if it were, I think children would be extremely
     7        at risk.  But the point of this is to show that the
     8        imbalance (and it can be repeated through all these eight
     9        meals) tends to find the fat levels high compared with
    10        many of the essential nutrient levels.  Similarly, I can
    11        do a very similar exercise for salt.
    12
    13   MS. STEEL:   I think it would be helpful if you did do that?
    14        A.  Shall I do salt for the first one here?  The World
    15        Health Organisation's recommended maximum salt intake is
    16        six grammes a day for an adult.  Now, salt and sodium, you
    17        are probably aware, are not quite identical beasts; sodium
    18        being a part of the salt molecule, 40 per cent of it is a
    19        rule of thumb.
    20
    21   Q.   So if we are talking about six grammes of salt a day, how
    22        much sodium is that then?
    23        A.  That would be 2.4 grammes of sodium.
    24
    25   Q.   In terms of this meal, is the meal high in sodium?
    26        A.  Well, I would say by my estimate that at 1488, that is
    27        approximately 60 to 62 per cent of -- to give the sum
    28        exactly, 1488 divided by -----
    29
    30   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That is 6,000 milligrams?
    31        A.  Yes.
    32
    33   Q.   In fact, if you were to use what we have called the Grey
    34        Book which gives an average for men in this country of
    35        3,376 milligrams and suggest -----
    36        A.  Of sodium or salt because we keep tripping over this
    37        problem, I understand.  Salt -- the World Health
    38        recommendation is for salt at six which is equivalent to
    39        2,400.
    40
    41   Q.   This is NA intake?
    42        A.  That is sodium and the equivalent, therefore, of the
    43        World Health Organisation recommendation would be 2,400
    44        milligrams of sodium as being sufficient for a daily
    45        intake, a maximum daily intake.
    46
    47   Q.   If we took the Grey Book, the sodium there is just under
    48        half the daily average.
    49
    50   MS. STEEL:   I cannot remember what page it is on. 
    51 
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It is page 155, paragraph 25.4:  The average 
    53        for a British adult male is 3376 milligrams of sodium and
    54        for a woman 2,351.
    55        A.  So from -----
    56
    57   Q.   And the amount it says that you should not take less than
    58        is 1600 milligrams.  The conclusion, they not feel able to
    59        state a figure which should be aimed at, but they saw some
    60        merit in not going above increasing the average; somewhere

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