Day 296 - 07 Nov 96 - Page 10
1 low in fibre; and with the evidence of Dr. Wheelock,
2 McDonald's own nutrition consultant, who admitted that
3 McDonald's products, or many of the items sold at
4 McDonald's, were high in fat and sodium. He admitted that
5 a typical McDonald's meal was high in fat, saturated fat,
6 and sodium content. He agreed that a typical McDonald's
7 meal would not come within the dietary recommendations of
8 the various health authorities or bodies.
9
10 Before going any further, I just wanted to make some kind
11 of introductory propositions which are that, firstly,
12 references to McDonald's food within the relevant passages
13 of the leaflet, and indeed within the meanings you
14 attributed to those passages, have to be considered in
15 context. That is to say, that their meaning has to be
16 considered by reference to what the average person in the
17 street would think by those words. After all, both
18 McDonald's Corporation and McDonald's Restaurants, the two
19 Plaintiffs, claim to have a reputation within the UK,
20 because ordinary people attach some meaning to the tag
21 'McDonald's'.
22
23 By the same token, we submit that ordinary people attach
24 some meaning to McDonald's food and associate it with, for
25 example, Big Mac and chips, and that that is particularly
26 so where you are talking about an average McDonald's meal.
27 Big Mac and chips, or Big Mac and fries, as they would call
28 them, is basically what McDonald's are famous for, and we
29 say it is completely unrealistic and misleading on the part
30 of the Plaintiffs to contend that ordinary people associate
31 the words McDonald's food, or the average McDonald's meal,
32 with the entire range of foods which may or may not be
33 available at any given store at any given time.
34
35 In other words, if the people that McDonald's are anxious
36 should never read the leaflet were stopped in the street
37 and asked what they considered the words 'McDonald's food'
38 or 'typical McDonald's meal', or 'average McDonald's meal',
39 referred to, they would not answer, side salads, orange
40 juice and apple pie, which McDonald's say are now available
41 at some stores; but they would answer, Big Mac and fries,
42 or hamburger and fries, or cheeseburger and fries, thick
43 shakes, which is exactly what the text itself immediately
44 describes after this paragraph, when it says, in the very
45 first paragraph -- sorry, no, it is not immediately after
46 this paragraph. It is before that paragraph. It refers to
47 mass produced hamburgers, chips, colas and milkshakes.
48
49 I mean, obviously there is the point that most of those
50 products that McDonald's are now trying to rely on have
51 only come in since -- well, most of those products which
52 McDonald's are now trying to rely on to say they have got
53 so-called healthy options available, have only come in
54 since the date of the alleged libel and are not available
55 in all the stores.
56
57 In any event, as I say, it is clear from the leaflet that
58 the products that are being referred to in relation to
59 whether or not they are a useful and nutritious part of any
60 diet are products such as hamburgers, chips, colas and
