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

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