Day 296 - 07 Nov 96 - Page 17


     
     1        You may remember that Professor Vernon Wheelock, McDonald's
     2        own consultant, admitted finally that there is a
     3        considerable amount of evidence that diseases such as
     4        obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease
     5        stroke and some forms of cancer are related to a diet high
     6        in fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar, low in dietary
     7        fibre, and he said that we have now reached a point where
     8        we can be very confident that diet is the primary factor in
     9        the development of most of the degenerative diseases in
    10        many industrialised countries, and that included cancer.
    11
    12        He agreed that it was not sensible to encourage people to
    13        eat foods which are high in fat, saturated fat, sugar,
    14        sodium and low in fibre, which is precisely what McDonald's
    15        are doing; they are continually marketing those very
    16        products and encouraging people to eat more and more of
    17        them and at the same time trying to promote them as if they
    18        were nutritious.
    19
    20        We heard in relation to that point, that despite the fact
    21        that McDonald's is claiming to support the Health of the
    22        Nation Dietary Initiatives, which were put in place to try
    23        to improve the population's health, that that claimed
    24        support has had no effect at all on their marketing
    25        department.  That was admitted by John Hawkes, who is their
    26        chief marketing officer.
    27
    28        We heard that they do not have a nutrition department and
    29        that Mr. Oakley, who was the senior vice president of
    30        McDonald's UK, had said that it was not felt to be an
    31        important enough issue to have a separate nutritional
    32        department, like the company has a marketing or a
    33        communications department.  So we say that is a clear
    34        indication of the fact that their so-called support for
    35        Health of the Nation Dietary Initiatives is basically just
    36        another PR stunt.  There have been public pronouncements in
    37        the newspaper about how they support that, how they are
    38        working towards implementing it, although it is quite clear
    39        that any changes they are making are very slow, minimal,
    40        and are only being done because of the huge amount of
    41        pressure that the company has come under from
    42        nutritionists.
    43
    44        Just on the point about their own promotional literature
    45        and the paragraph in the fact sheet about McDonald's trying
    46        to show in their nutrition guides that the mass produced
    47        hamburgers, chips and Colas and milk shakes, et cetera, are
    48        a useful and nutritious part of any diet.  We obviously
    49        questioned McDonald's own witnesses at length on this
    50        matter, and you may remember that at the end of the day
    51        they all basically agreed that all 'nutritious' meant to
    52        them was foods that contain nutrients.  That was Edward
    53        Oakley, chief purchasing officer and senior vice president
    54        of McDonald's UK, who said that.  He is the person
    55        responsible for the nutrition guides that were available in
    56        the McDonald's stores.
    57
    58        David Green, the senior vice president of marketing in the
    59        USA, said the same and he even thought that Coca-cola was
    60        nutritious because it provided water and that was part of a

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