Day 299 - 13 Nov 96 - Page 08
1 It is clear from the McDonald's admission that they do
2 design the food down to the last detail to look and feel
3 and taste exactly the same in every outlet in the world,
4 and that it is fair enough to call that artificial
5 conformity as a result of that. And then they have
6 admitted that they use a number of additives for that
7 purpose.
8
9 On meaning 'J', effectively the meaning of this section of
10 the leaflet, the section headed "How do McDonald's
11 deliberately exploit children" -- actually it covers 'K' as
12 well -- is that McDonald's uses a huge amount of
13 advertising targeted at children whose purpose is to
14 encourage children to think that McDonald's is a part of
15 everyday life and hence that they are not normal if they do
16 not go there.
17
18 I think you should note that the 'normal' is in inverted
19 commas in the leaflet and it is clearly talking about
20 normal in the sense of fitting into sort of -- well, it is
21 talking about fitting in with your peers and being accepted
22 by your peers.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Being the odd one out if you do not.
25
26 MS. STEEL: Yes. And that further, the meaning is that the use
27 of such advertising and gimmickry is done with the
28 knowledge that it will result in children pressurising
29 their parents into taking them to McDonald's.
30
31 Then, on top of that again, that McDonald's promote the
32 consumption of their meals as a fun event, which I think
33 has been accepted by just about every witness for
34 McDonald's. They have talked about the fun experience, how
35 the experience is all part of coming to eat at McDonald's.
36
37 Then the leaflet talks about this reducing the food itself
38 to the status of a prop in the minds of children. It is
39 the fun experience they are going for, the food is just by
40 the by, really.
41
42 Then about the "not a lot of children are interested in
43 nutrition and even if they were all the gimmicks and
44 routines with paper hats and straws and balloons hide the
45 fact that the food they are seduced into eating is at best
46 mediocre and at worst poisonous", and the parents know it
47 is not even cheap. Effectively, this is about McDonald's
48 promoting the consumption of their meals as a fun event to
49 cover up for the inadequacy of their products which are at
50 best mediocre, i.e., they are nothing special, they are
51 pretty average, by way of sort of taste, whatever, that
52 they are certainly not beneficial for your health and that
53 in the worst case scenario they can have a detrimental
54 effect on your health, either through the degenerative...
55 Sorry, the long-term effects and their contribution to
56 degenerative diseases which would be a slow poisoning.
57 Obviously if you are going to get heart disease or cancer,
58 and die of it, then if the food that you are eating is
59 contributing to that then it could be termed as slow
60 poison. Or, alternatively, that you could risk food
