Day 001 - 28 Jun 94 - Page 41
1 apt, and indeed intended, to seduce children into going to
McDonald's, would it matter?
2
My Lord, we would submit that it would only matter if the
3 food they ate when they got there was apt to do harm. If,
as I have suggested, that is absolutely not the case, then
4 really the case on advertising falls away to nothing.
5 I should tell your Lordship that Professor Wheelock has
specifically studied the question of whether there is any
6 likelihood that children may come to harm from eating
McDonald's food. His conclusion is that if a child eats a
7 typical McDonald's meal of hamburger and regular french
fries, medium sized diet coke and apple pie, which is
8 quite a large meal, he will, therefore, consume 2.4 per
cent of his weekly intake of calories in the form of total
9 fat and 1.1 per cent in saturated fat.
10 This must be contrasted with the recommended -- these are
governments recommendations -- maximum weekly percentages
11 which are, respectively, 35 per cent for total fat and 11
per cent for saturated fat. My Lord, the reference to
12 that particular calculation, or the figures from which it
is drawn, are yellow bundle Roman V/6, page 15 which is a
13 table.
14 It is in consequence of that calculation and other similar
ones that I am able to assert that that same child could
15 eat the same meal six more times in that same week and
still achieve only a little over half of his recommended
16 weekly intakes of total and saturated fat.
17 Finally this, my Lord: It might be thought, as
I suggested earlier, that parents who decide to take on
18 the responsibility of having children might be
sufficiently responsible to ensure that their children are
19 fed a balanced diet and do not eat an excess of any
particular kind of food, whether it be McDonald's
20 hamburgers or Cadbury's chocolate or Walls ice cream.
21 With that I turn to food poisoning: I express the issue
here as this: Are McDonald's customers exposed to any
22 significant risk of food poisoning by eating at
McDonald's? Again the answer is they plainly are not.
23 The reasons for this are, your Lordship may feel, really
rather obvious. I apologise for going into it.
24
Your Lordship will, I hope, forgive me for having from
25 time to time addressed your Lordship as though your
Lordship were a jury. Were it nor for the peculiar
26 circumstances of this case, I would not have done that;
I would have opened the case a good deal more shortly and
27 in somewhat less than what might one call the jury
manner. I must do it for the reasons that your Lordship
28 knows. This is the first opportunity that McDonald's have
had to destroy these allegations -- and I must make the
29 best use of it that I can.
30 Food poisoning: Are McDonald's customers exposed to any
significant risk of food poisoning by eating at the
