Day 265 - 19 Jun 96 - Page 15
1 foods are a useful and nutritious part of any diet."
2
3 If I could just ask you in sections. Would you say
4 that food is very unhealthy if it is high in fat, sugar,
5 animal products and salt and low in fibre, vitamins and
6 minerals?
7 A. Yes. Do you say that if food of any kind is, as you
8 say, that it is very unhealthy?
9
10 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Morris did not include the word
13 McDonald's. He was just asking you about food of that
14 description.
15 A. Yes, thank you.
16
17 MR. MORRIS: I do not expect you to have analysed McDonald's
18 foods, so I am not asking you about that. Can eating such
19 food, will, make your diet high in fat, sugar, animal
20 products and salt and low in fibre, vitamins and minerals?
21 A. Yes, but I want to qualify my reply if I may.
22
23 Q. Yes?
24 A. Because, really, this goes to the point that I was
25 trying to make in my statement that you just read out. It
26 seems to me very important to understand that people
27 typically in this country are at high risk or, you could
28 equally well say, very high risk, of diseases such as
29 coronary heart disease and cancers like that of breast and
30 bowel cancer, and that is true on a population basis, if
31 they eat a typical diet.
32
33 I mean, I dare say that my own work in the field for
34 the last decade or so has really been founded on that
35 principle, which is attested to by scientists in the field
36 and backed by Government. So that I would say that that is
37 a true statement of any food or diet whose nutritional
38 content roughly corresponds to the average diet eaten in
39 this country when the second issue, of course is -- forgive
40 me for putting it rather crudely -- is McDonald's food in
41 any relevant sense worse than the average diet, and I
42 gather there has been voluminous evidence presented to that
43 effect, whether or not that is so and --
44
45 Q. I am not particularly asking you about McDonald's food
46 because, as you say, other people have dealt with that in
47 the case.
48 A. Well, put it like this -- well, no, I think I have said
49 what I wanted to say.
50
51 Q. You have dealt with the risk. I will just ask you again.
52 If your diet is of that nature, would that lead to a very
53 real risk that you will suffer cancer of the breast or
54 bowel or heart disease as a result?
55 A. Oh, certainly, yes.
56
57 Q. I will not ask you --
58 A. Forgive these qualifiers, but again a point that I am
59 trying to make in evidence is that if somebody dies as a
60 result of a fish bone lodging in their throat, or because
