Day 052 - 21 Nov 94 - Page 17
1 McDonald's food is so lacking in bulk it is hardly possible
2 to chew it. Even their own figures show that a 'quarter
3 pounder' is 48 per cent water. This sort of fake food
4 encourages over-eating, and the high sugar and sodium
5 content can make people develop a kind of addiction - a
6 'craving'. That means more profit for McDonald's, but
7 constipation, clogged arteries and heart attacks for many
8 customers." Again I ask the rhetorical question, in this
9 context whose customers are those supposed to be?
10
11 My Lord, then, finally, the bit about the children on the
12 next page.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I pause there a moment? Yes, it just
15 occurs to me when I pointed out in relation to paragraph H
16 of the pleading that it referred to high in sugar and
17 sodium content but not fat, it is that which is alleged to
18 lead to addiction or craving, the high in sugar and sodium,
19 but it is not just those qualities in the food ---
20
21 MR. RAMPTON: No, my Lord, that is right.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- which lead to heart attacks; it is not
24 saying that.
25
26 MR. RAMPTON: No. If I may respectfully say so, that is, in our
27 submission, the proper interpretation of the passage I have
28 just read. What it is saying is it is so sugary and salty,
29 you like to eat it so much, you get addicted and then it
30 kills you.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Then the food being what it is, which means
33 I suppose you say goes back to high in fat, sugar, animal
34 products and salt and low in fibre, vitamins and minerals.
35
36 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, it is all under general heading: What is so
37 unhealthy about the food?
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: And then causes heart attacks.
40
41 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, precisely. Then, finally, for context the
42 passage about children starting on the next page: "How do
43 McDonald's deliberately exploit children?" Remembering
44 that, in fact, this is not a turnover page for the reader;
45 it is part of the central part of the leaflet. It is as
46 the eye looks at it directly beside the column about
47 unhealthy food.
48
49 My Lord, I will get a facsimile made for your Lordship
50 because it is, in fact, quite helpful. My Lord, might
51 I interpose at this stage to say what , perhaps, I should
52 have said at the outset: At this stage, I am not concerned
53 to persuade your Lordship -- your Lordship is the tribunal
54 of facts -- what is the true, natural and ordinary meaning
55 of these passages. What I am concerned to do is to invite
56 your Lordship to say that what we propose to plead is a
57 meaning or are meanings which the words complained of are
58 reasonably capable of being found to bear by a jury or, in
59 this case, by your Lordship.
60
