Day 032 - 06 Oct 94 - Page 10


     
     1        areas.
     2
     3   Q.   You can sit down as you wish or stand up.  Have there been
     4        changes in dietary patterns in the last 20, 30 years?
     5        A.  I believe there have.  I believe there is evidence to
     6        show that, in my opinion, there have been changes in
     7        dietary patterns, both in the types of food eaten and in
     8        the resulting consequences in terms of disease rate.  For
     9        example, even in the last 10 years there have been
    10        increases in the numbers of adults deemed obese through
    11        government surveys, but also there have been changes in
    12        eating patterns, and I believe that the impact of high
    13        street fastfood outlets has been a party to that change in
    14        eating patterns which has moved more to a snack food
    15        eating to "grazing", as it is called, which is tending to
    16        eat between meals as well as at meals, and away from
    17        regularisation of food intake through three meals a day.
    18
    19   Q.   Is also the type of food being eaten changing?
    20        A.  Well, there it is harder to -- obviously, the types of
    21        food have changed -- you only need to look at your
    22        supermarket shelves -- but the actual nutrient quality of
    23        those foods is a bit more hard to determine.  Although
    24        patterns would show that, for example, low fat milk
    25        consumption has increased, low fat spreads consumption
    26        have increased, one might then think, therefore, the fat
    27        consumption has actually decreased because these low fat
    28        alternatives are being eaten more.
    29
    30        In fact, it appears from our evidence, from evidence that
    31        is currently being looked at, that quantities of fat in
    32        the diet have not changed over the last 10 years or so.
    33        The average diet still consumes as much fat as it ever
    34        did.
    35
    36        On sugar, similarly, although people are actually
    37        consuming -- no, they are consuming as much sugar as ever
    38        they did.  They are purchasing less white sugar, but they
    39        are consuming as much sugar as ever they did, plenty of
    40        that sugar appearing to come from sources where it is not
    41        obvious that the food contains a lot of sugar; for
    42        example, spreads, soft drinks (which are obviously sweet,
    43        but the quantity of sugar is not necessarily apparent),
    44        and other ways in which sugars can be added to food,
    45        including savoury foods.  So the total consumption of
    46        sugar by the population in this country appears not to
    47        have changed at all, despite attempts by individuals --
    48        indeed by the mass of the population -- to reduce their
    49        purchasing of plain sugar, white sugar.
    50 
    51   Q.   When you say it has not changed, you mean it has not gone 
    52        down despite concerns? 
    53        A.  Exactly.
    54
    55   Q.   Does that imply it had risen since, say, the Second World
    56        War?
    57        A.  I do not think I can go back that far.  What it
    58        implies is a shift of the sources of sugar.  So, despite
    59        individuals' intention to buy, for example, low fat or low
    60        sugar, reduce their sugar consumption by buying less

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