Day 025 - 16 Sep 94 - Page 19


     
     1        McDonald's and have a perfectly well balanced meal, can
     2        you not?
     3        A.  What meal are you referring to, Mr. Rampton?
     4
     5   Q.   Say you had a salad and some fish, a diet coke perhaps?
     6        A.  I do not know, but I have a relatively dim memory,
     7        having not looked at it in years, that McDonald's salad
     8        dressing provided was more than the recommended serving
     9        for salad dressing and was relatively high in sodium.
    10        I also believe their fish product was fried, and again it
    11        is not in this ad so I cannot refer to it, maybe it is
    12        elsewhere, but that it would be -- the filet-o-fish
    13        sandwich, for instance, has 799 milligrams of sodium and
    14        26 grams of fat.  That coupled with whatever amounts of
    15        fat and sodium would be in the large packet of salad
    16        dressing, no, I would not say that was a very healthy
    17        meal.  It might be at a break even point for 30 per cent
    18        consumption of calories from fat; it might be at
    19        approximately the average for the quantity of sodium one
    20        should take in one meal, but it would not be the type that
    21        is necessary to off set if you had another meal at
    22        McDonald's.  It is too high in fat and sodium.
    23
    24   Q.   You do distinguish -- I think we are agreed about this --
    25        between a healthy meal and a healthy diet, do you not?
    26        A.  Yes.
    27
    28   Q.   Do you envisage the victims of this so-called deceptive
    29        campaign eating McDonald's meals three times a day, 365
    30        times a year?
    31        A.  No, sir.
    32
    33   Q.   Then why does it matter?
    34        A.  Because people should not be lied to, Mr. Rampton.
    35
    36   Q.   Where is the lie in it?
    37        A.  I work on the assumption that a half truth is a whole
    38        lie.  It is a saying of one of our eminent Supreme Court
    39        Jurists, and it is inappropriate; it is illegal to tell
    40        people only half the truth in order to sell a product.
    41        Whether McDonald's does it or any other manufacturer of
    42        food or any other product in our country.
    43
    44   Q.   So is the position really this, that absent a health
    45        warning any encouragement to the public to buy McDonald's
    46        food is deceptive; is that right?
    47        A.  No, sir.
    48
    49   Q.   Should it have on it the sort of thing we find on
    50        cigarette packets in this country:  "This food may kill 
    51        you"? 
    52        A.  I do not have an opinion on that.  It was not, and is 
    53        not, my job to decide what kind of warnings should be on
    54        products.  It was my job to enforce State law.  State law
    55        did not require that.  I know that consumer groups that
    56        I have worked with and that I have represented would like
    57        to see those types of warnings.  Whether or not they
    58        should be, I do not actually have an opinion.
    59
    60   Q.   Is that not the effect of what you are telling us?

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