Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 09
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you just pause a minute there?
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4 MS. STEEL: Sorry. Fourth paragraph,"Again, similar
5 calculations can be made which show that a typical
6 McDonald's meal is also lacking in fibre, fresh fruit and
7 vegetables and certain vitamins." In terms of vitamins
8 and so on, how do you judge whether or not something is low
9 in vitamins?
10 A. Based on dietetic experience you would look at a meal,
11 and a balanced meal or a good healthy meal would contain
12 mostly, sort of, carbohydrates. It would contain plenty of
13 fruit and vegetables, and looking at a McDonald's meal you
14 would see a distinct lack of fruit and vegetables. Current
15 advice is to eat more than 5 pieces of fruit and vegetable
16 a day, and also vitamin C, you would suspect, would be a
17 problem in a meal that did not contain fresh fruit and
18 vegetables.
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20 Other nutrients would be likely to be lacking as
21 well. Recent advice is to include antioxidant nutrients
22 within meals. They are exclusively found in fresh fruit
23 and vegetables. You would also know that if the meal was
24 high in fat and animal protein that as a proportion of that
25 meal you would know that the calories would be quite high
26 and, therefore, that person would lack having certain
27 vitamins and minerals because they are getting all their
28 calories from a high fat, low carbohydrate, low fibre type
29 of meal.
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31 Q. So that is displacing the more positive types of food. Is
32 that what you are saying?
33 A. Yes, it is unlikely that somebody could make up those
34 vitamins and minerals on that type of meal, yes.
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36 Q. Right. The recommendation to eat at least 5 portions of
37 fruit and vegetables a day, does that include potatoes?
38 A. Not exactly. It is more the green vegetables, the
39 yellow vegetables, the coloured vegetables where you would
40 find the antioxidant nutrients, and potatoes are not really
41 a part of that, no.
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43 Q. But in terms of eating 5 pieces or portions of vegetable a
44 day, fruit and vegetables a day, are potatoes on top of
45 that or are the potatoes counted as part of that?
46 A. My understanding is that the type of fresh fruit and
47 vegetables you want are the coloured ones, the green ones,
48 the orange ones, the yellow ones, where you would find the
49 antioxidant nutrients which protect against heart disease
50 and cancer.
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52 MR. MORRIS: When you are talking about pieces or portions --
53 when you said 5?
54 A. Well, you can see the figure from the WHO in the next
55 paragraph is 400 grammes, but obviously fruit and
56 vegetables vary in size but on average it would be like 5
57 whole pieces, like a whole banana, whole apple, a whole
58 pepper. You know, it would be whole pieces rather than
59 just a small portion.
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