Day 298 - 11 Nov 96 - Page 32
1
2 MS. STEEL: Right. By a community trust, and that her job
3 involved working with people in primary health care -- GPs,
4 nurses, et cetera -- giving them advice on how to prevent
5 coronary heart disease and any other diet related diseases,
6 and she had been a qualified dietician since 1977.
7
8 She stated that in her opinion an average McDonald's meal
9 is high in fat, saturated fat found in animal products,
10 sugar and sodium, or sugar and salt, and it is low in fibre
11 and some vitamins, which could lead to diseases such as
12 heart disease and certain cancers.
13
14 She went on to say that the company's own nutritional data
15 demonstrated that the food was too high in fat, according
16 to the UK government official guidelines and expert reports
17 from around the world such as the World Health Organisation
18 report on diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic
19 diseases. That was on page 4, from line 12.
20
21 There is an error in the transcript on that page. The
22 thing about too high in fat has come out as 'too high in
23 fact'.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think I will get the obvious ones. If you
26 think there is a subtle one that might mislead me, tell me.
27
28 MS. STEEL: She went into the meal combinations which are found
29 in 'Good Food, Nutrition and McDonald's' and said that meal
30 combination one, which was Big Mac, large french fries,
31 apple pie and regular Cola, came out at 1,283 kilocalories,
32 64.4 grams of fat, which worked out at 579.6 kilocalories,
33 or 45 percent of calories from fat, and 1,488 milligrams of
34 sodium. And that meal combination two, which was
35 hamburger, regular french fries and milk provided 707
36 kilocalories and 35.1 grams of fat, which worked out at
37 315.9 kilocalories from fat or 45 percent of the calories
38 coming from fat.
39
40 She explained the method of obtaining the amount of
41 kilocalories from grams of fat was to multiply the grams by
42 nine times, since one gram of fat equals nine
43 kilocalories. Both of those meals came out as 45 percent
44 of calories from fat, which she reminded you the UK
45 government recommends a maximum of 35 percent of energy as
46 fat, which she said was much lower than a typical
47 McDonald's meal of 45 percent fat. Page 50.
48
49 She went on to say that the UK government fat
50 recommendations are moderate compared to other
51 international reports such as World Health Organisation,
52 which recommends 15 to 30 percent of energy as fat
53 maximum. Actually, there is another transcript error there
54 because it came out at 35 percent, or it is possible that
55 she said 35 percent meaning 30 percent. Later on she does
56 say 30 percent. We do know that is the figure that the
57 World Health Organisation recommend as a maximum. She
58 explained that the UK government target of 35 percent was
59 an arbitrary figure which was picked out because the
60 government decided they might be able to achieve that. In
