Day 037 - 14 Oct 94 - Page 51
1 "McDonald's", interestingly enough, except on the
2 packaging of the chips but it uses the logo recognition at
3 the top, the big M, the golden arches.
4
5 What I find disturbing about the first photograph is
6 simply this, that they are making a very bold statement
7 here, that this is a meal; that a coke, a packet of chips
8 and I think this is a Big Mac constitutes a meal. This is
9 leading us in the wrong direction in this country. We do
10 not need to be considering meals as this kind of highly
11 unbalanced affair. What we need to be thinking about is,
12 as I have already mentioned but must say again, a greater
13 intake of fresh vegetables and fruit and reducing the fat
14 consumption.
15
16 Now, if we become more aware of this as a good definition
17 of a meal, then we will find the national health will
18 undoubtedly improve probably to the extent of the targets
19 set by the government in their recent paper, Health of the
20 Nation.
21
22 This seems to me to be going quite the wrong way in
23 defining what a meal is. It is the second step along the
24 road because, obviously, the Plaintiffs would say: "Well,
25 it does not really matter if you have one or two meals
26 which, you know, are high-in-fat and do not contain any of
27 the nutrients found in plant foods" and so on. It is the
28 overall diet that counts.
29
30 That is exactly what some people were saying a few years
31 back about an individual food. Well, now, this is the
32 second stage down that individual line, that it is not
33 individual foods that count, it is not even individual
34 meals that count. To me, this is a dreadfully slippery
35 slope. Nevertheless, I feel quite sure that many people
36 will see this and consider it to be a meal, a good meal,
37 perhaps even a healthy meal.
38
39 MR. MORRIS: An extra value meal, in fact?
40 A. Yes, as it states there. If I may turn to the
41 photograph No. 2 which is a huge in-store poster in
42 display, I believe, right now at all McDonald's -- at
43 least all the ones I have seen recently -- again this is
44 talking to us about the concept of a meal. In this case
45 the meal is rather more expensive and it consists of this
46 huge thing, this daunting burger called a Mega Mac, large
47 chips, large fries and a large soft drink. Now, I found
48 this particularly ironic in view of the fact that
49 McDonald's ceaselessly seems to promote themselves in
50 certain areas, at least, as promoters of health.
51
52 Q. Indeed, make improvements in their range?
53 A. Well, quite, yes. This is not an improvement at all.
54 I enquired at the store where this photograph was taken as
55 to the nutritional content of this meal. It was not
56 available. That information was not available -- at least
57 it was not in this Baker Street store. So, I then
58 enquired as to what a "Mega Mac" actually was, what
59 constituted it, and I was told by one of the people
60 serving at the counter (who, I assume, knows what they are
