Day 283 - 21 Oct 96 - Page 22
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2 We will move on to nutrition. The links between diet and
3 degenerative diseases including heart disease and cancer,
4 are those views in the public domain. Clearly, they are.
5 The World Health Organisation thinks they are, the US
6 Government Secretary of State welcomed the report which we
7 looked at, I cannot remember whether it was the 800 page
8 one, I think it was, which linked diet and cancer and
9 explained how the relationship was causal.
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11 The UK Health Education Authority produces pamphlets
12 indicating the same. McDonald's own leaflet, produced only
13 months before the London Greenpeace fact sheet, as far as
14 we can identify the timescales as neither of us were
15 involved with either the research or the production of the
16 fact sheet, on page 12 of McDonald's own fact sheet about
17 their food, called Good Food, Nutrition and McDonald's.
18 The context is how does nutrition relate to McDonald's. On
19 page 12 it says: There is a considerable amount of
20 evidence to suggest that many of the diseases which are
21 more common in the western affluent world, diseases such as
22 obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease,
23 stroke and some forms of cancer, are related to diet. The
24 typical western diet is relatively low in dietary fiber,
25 roughage and high in fat, salt and sugar. Many countries
26 have therefore published dietary guidelines, general
27 recommendations concerning diet which are aimed at the
28 whole population in order to prevent - and I underline
29 "prevent" - these diseases and to promote good health.
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31 Then it goes on to say we should eat more of such and such
32 foods and less of such and such foods. And because of the
33 word "prevent" it may be felt that that phraseology is
34 stronger than the text of the London Greenpeace fact sheet
35 linking diet and ill health. Paul Preston stood by that,
36 that McDonald's pamphlet.
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38 McDonald's recognised that they could not deal with
39 criticisms regarding nutrition in the 1986 memo from the
40 United States, the internal memo which said words to the
41 effect of we can't deal with nutrition if people don't come
42 to us for nutrition, let us take the moral high ground and
43 talk about balance. As a line, it was a PR meeting in
44 terms of how to respond to their critics. In fact, it was
45 minutes of a meeting; it was not a memo. I think it was
46 minutes of a meeting. Again, we will look at that later on
47 in the speeches.
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49 Finally, I think it will be fair to say that it is a common
50 view that McDonald's kind of food is junk food. It is the
51 kind of food that people in general feel is not
52 particularly healthy. Obviously a lot of people still eat
53 it. Even the same people that eat it recognise it is poor
54 quality.
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56 In fact, while I think about that, even Professor Wheelock,
57 who was McDonald's nutrition consultant, in a previous
58 pamphlet we put to him talked about discouraging people
59 from eating fatty snacky foods or something. I cannot
60 remember what he said.
