Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 48
1 meal the McDonald's fat contribution (if I can call it
2 that) is 18.7 or 18.8 per cent of the man's energy
3 requirement and if, in the second meal, the McDonald's fat
4 contribution is 10.23 per cent of his energy requirement
5 and he eats, let us say, one McDonald's meal per week even,
6 as much as that, do you agree that that meal is not making
7 any significant contribution to his overall dietary fat?
8 A. I notice you picked out the -- I mean, I have not got
9 all the dietary reference figures in front of me, but I can
10 sort of remember the broad value of them. In terms of a
11 moderately exercising man, and that would probably be quite
12 an unusual man because the levels of exercise in this
13 country are quite low, anyone who is exercising for sport
14 or, you know, for any sort of health gain, the actual extra
15 calories, it is recommended that the extra calories they
16 have are from carbohydrates.
17
18 So, if you speak to an athlete or a sports player, if they
19 go for sort of sports nutritional advice they would be
20 recommended to have a high carbohydrate type diet. So, I
21 think, if you are talking about somebody who was doing
22 sport for even, just for at very low competitive level,
23 then they ought to be having quite a high carbohydrate diet
24 and not including the excess fat.
25
26 I mean, I find it hard to imagine what other foods this
27 person might be having to actually achieve the government
28 recommended 35 per cent. They would probably have to have
29 something like, you know, dry toast for breakfast, you
30 know, maybe sort of cereal with skimmed milk, pasta, you
31 know, made without any oil. You would have to have a diet
32 which would be rather unusual in order to achieve the
33 government's recommendations.
34
35 Q. I am sorry. I simply do not follow that. This is for a
36 single day. This is one meal on one day and, as you know,
37 the energy recommended -- sorry, the estimated energy
38 requirements are for one day for a particular person and
39 they are averages. Even with your first meal, which is
40 about as fatty as you can get, even at McDonald's ----- A.
41 45 percent, but there are higher -----
42
43 Q. No, no, bear with me please. Even with your first meal,
44 which is about as fatty as you can get, even at McDonald's,
45 that single meal on that single day is only making a
46 contribution of half that person's recommended energy
47 intake from fat. That is to say -----
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But what troubles me, I am not sure this is
50 the right approach because it also -- the meal as a whole
51 contributes two bits, thereabouts, of the man's energy
52 requirements for the day. So, whatever else he eats in the
53 day is going to provide about 60 per cent of the rest of
54 his energy requirements.
55
56 So, to exaggerate rather the McDonald's meal has provided
57 nearly half, two fifths in fact, but nearly half of what he
58 is going to eat that day. If one is looking at it on a
59 daily basis -- and I appreciate you say this may be the
60 wrong way of looking at it -- but if one is looking at it
