Day 033 - 10 Oct 94 - Page 08
1 things you give -- are these particularly high?
2 A. These are higher even than an average unmodified diet
3 of a person who had never even heard, say, of any need to
4 modify their diet. These foods present more fat than an
5 average and unmodified diet. If one compares them to the
6 most conservative nutritional recommendations, they are
7 quite high in comparison to those, both in fat and in
8 cholesterol.
9
10 Q. You did not mention sodium content or sugar. Do you have
11 any comment about that?
12 A. Yes. When I have reviewed the sodium content of the
13 offerings sold at McDonald's restaurants, a number of them
14 are really quite high. By that I mean over a gramme of
15 sodium in a single food, a single product. That is really
16 a very large amount of sodium. Some of their foods, of
17 course, are high in sugar. Their sodas have sugar as
18 their virtually sole nutrient.
19
20 Q. You have compared that kind of food with other foods on
21 the top of the second page?
22 A. Yes. Well, if one compares, say, for example, a
23 cheeseburger, 40 per cent of the calories of a
24 cheeseburger, according to the reference text that I used
25 to check a McDonald's cheeseburger, 45 per cent of the
26 calories come from fat. If you compare that to typical
27 beans, whether black beans, pinto beans or other navy
28 beans, the figure is only 4 per cent.
29
30 In other words, for every calorie from fat in beans, more
31 than 11 are found in a typical cheeseburger. Rice is from
32 one to five per cent fat as a percentage of calories; one
33 per cent would be white rice; five per cent would be brown
34 rice. So it varies with the variety. A potato is less
35 than one per cent fat. Similarly, these foods that I
36 have mentioned, beans, potatoes, rice and virtually --
37 well, all foods from the plant kingdom contain no
38 cholesterol at all. It is only found in animal products.
39 So the difference is really quite striking.
40
41 Q. What are the implications for chronic diseases and other
42 diseases?
43 A. A diet that is high in fat and in cholesterol, sodium
44 and sugar and low in fibre, low in certain vitamins and
45 minerals, is clearly linked to a higher risk of heart
46 disease, cancer and other chronic diseases as well as to a
47 worse prognosis when these diseases arise.
48
49 When people reduce their intake of fat, particularly
50 saturated fat and of cholesterol, and increase their
51 intake of fibre as well of certain vitamins and minerals,
52 their risk of these diseases clearly drops. This is
53 supported by a tremendous amount of research and is widely
54 accepted in the medical community.
55
56 Q. If I could refer you to -- maybe I can just hand this up
57 -- the World Health Organisation report. I will not read
58 it in full because it has been read out a number of times
59 in court. (Handed) It is the Conclusions on page 157.
60 If you just read those two paragraphs to yourself, I will
