Day 001 - 28 Jun 94 - Page 37
1 I have mentioned. It is that the defendants have confused
food with diet.
2
Professor Wheelock, for example, will show that a normal,
3 healthy person can safely eat as many as seven typical
McDonald's meals in a week and will still fall well short
4 of his recommended intakes of both total and saturated
fat; those totals being expressed as a percentage of total
5 calorie intake. Hence, he can eat those meals without
causing any significant risk to his health whatsoever.
6
Add to that, my Lord, this, that the plaintiffs' research
7 has shown that such a person would be a rare bird, indeed,
that is to say, the seven meals a week man or woman or
8 child.
9 In the United States the percentage of customers in 1991
who visited a McDonald's restaurants once a week or more
10 was 22 per cent; in the United Kingdom in 1993/94 the
equivalent figure was 15 per cent. The percentage of
11 those who visited a McDonald's restaurant seven times a
week was zero. The average frequency of visits in this
12 country was three to five times a year.
13 My Lord, then there is this further consideration which
I express, if I may, as a series of rhetorical questions:
14 Who is it that makes the decision to eat a McDonald's
meal? Is it McDonald's or is it the consumer? Who is it
15 that decides how many McDonald's meals the consumer will
eat in a given week? Who is it that decides what other
16 kinds of food the consumer will eat during the course of
that week? Who is it that decides whether the consumer
17 will take his children to a McDonald's restaurant and, if
so, how often?
18
My Lord, in our submission, the conclusions which may be
19 drawn from all this are these: First, no doubt, there
might be an argument whether or not it was advisable to
20 eat McDonald's food three times a day, 365 days a year,
year after year. But, my Lord, such a consumer is a
21 fantasy figure; he does not exist.
22 When McDonald's food is eaten as part of a diet -- I fear,
though it is wearisome, I shall keep stressing that word
23 -- which is otherwise reasonably well-balanced,
McDonald's food, even if eaten several times in a week, is
24 perfectly innocuous. More than that, it provides much
that is positively beneficial to human health: Protein,
25 vitamins, calcium, iron and, of course, energy.
26 The accusations levelled at McDonald's food by the leaflet
are, therefore, wholly unsustainable. Whatever medical or
27 scientific evidence there may or -- I stress the word --
may not be to suggest an association between certain kinds
28 of diet and certain diseases, what is absolutely
incontrovertible is that McDonald's cannot be held
29 responsible for it. They sell food, not diets. The
decision as to what a person or children should include in
30 his or her diet is the responsibility of that person
alone; it is not the responsibility of McDonald's.
