Day 269 - 25 Jun 96 - Page 14
1 their customers to come to their doors as many times as
2 possible, I think it is almost certainly, and I think
3 McDonald's would agree, a spin-off in terms of the fact
4 that it does influence the rest of the way that they eat.
5
6 So again, without a really detailed research programme on
7 this subject, it would be very difficult to quantitate. I
8 think we are looking at some minimal figures here. It
9 would be very difficult to quantitate the contribution of
10 any of these sort of high fat, saturated fat food types,
11 fast-foods, that might make to heart disease or western
12 types of cancer.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. I think you had got to 2.2 when I asked
15 for an explanation.
16
17 MS. STEEL: Yes.
18 A. Just for a point of clarification, my Lord, when I am
19 perhaps talking loosely off the cuff like this, if one is
20 referring to saturated fats, one actually is -- I am
21 including conceptually the trans-isomers which are present
22 in these types of meals as well, because the discussions
23 that have been held so far and the biological evidence is
24 that they are treated in much the same way as saturated
25 fats.
26
27 MS. STEEL: Right.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, just pause a moment.
30
31 MS. STEEL: Over a period of time do most people's dietary
32 patterns remain fairly the same or are they quite likely to
33 change quite a lot, or is that not really something you can
34 answer?
35 A. Well, I think one can answer there is no doubt that
36 people's diets have changed. The reasons for the change is
37 difficult to give you.
38
39 Q. Right.
40 A. But, I mean, even if we estimate, for example, the
41 content of fatty acids in the milk of women, which we have
42 done in mid-1970's, the 1980's and the 1990's, that it was
43 fairly similar between the '70's and '80's, but of late
44 there has been a significant change in that there has been
45 a much -- there has been an increase in the content of
46 unsaturated fatty acids in the milk of mothers that we
47 study.
48
49 Now, this is not big enough evidence, but I think there is,
50 without doubt, a changing pattern of diets. There was
51 certainly a huge change in diet after the end of the last
52 world war. During the war the country was guided by the
53 Ministry of Food which made everybody dig for victory and
54 we ate a lot of the sorts of -- in fact, a diet which was
55 very close to what the Americans might call a prudent diet
56 or much closer to matching the recommendations of what
57 people are trying to get at.
58
59 Subsequently, after the war, the disbandment of the
60 Ministry of Food, the Government went for a cheap food
