Day 052 - 21 Nov 94 - Page 16


     
     1        any special intelligence to start asking questions about
     2        McDonald's and to realise that something is seriously
     3        wrong.  The more you find out about McDonald's processed
     4        food, the less attractive it becomes, as this leaflet will
     5        show.  The truth about hamburgers is enough to put you off
     6        them for life".
     7
     8        My Lord, on the next page, purportedly answering some of
     9        the questions raised by that introductory passage, giving
    10        the interested reader the answers about what lies behind
    11        McDonald's mask, the passage starting:  "What's so
    12        unhealthy about McDonald's food?"  What may be easiest to
    13        do, if I may, is to hand up to your Lordship another of my
    14        rather feeble desk top publishing efforts.  Can I hold it
    15        up?  I am afraid it is all written over.  I am sorry about
    16        that.  It actually looked like that.  One started it here
    17        and it opened up so that one could see the two-creature
    18        hamburger at the bottom of the page in a cartoon.
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    21
    22   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, on the one side there is the cow --
    23        I suppose it is a cow -- saying:  "If the slaughterhouse
    24        doesn't get you", on the other side there is what I take to
    25        be a human being, a McDonald's customer, saying:  "The junk
    26        food will!" Again, I emphasise the word "will" as well of
    27        course as the words "the junk food".
    28
    29        My Lord, then the actual text from which the Defendants
    30        persist in trying to extract but a single paragraph:
    31         "What's so unhealthy about McDonald's food?"  My Lord, one
    32        notices at once that there is no reference there to a diet
    33        composed entirely of food such as McDonald's or an
    34        unbalanced diet too high in fat, or anything of that kind.
    35        The blunt question (which is shortly to be answered under
    36        the heading McDeadly, McDisease and McCancer) is:  What's
    37        so unhealthy about McDonald's food?  "McDonald's try to
    38        show in their 'Nutrition Guide' (which is full of
    39        impressive-looking but really quite irrelevant facts and
    40        figures) that mass-produced hamburgers, chips, colas,
    41        milkshakes, etc., are a useful and nutritious part of any
    42        diet.
    43
    44        What they don't make clear is that a diet high in fat,
    45        sugar, animal products and salt (sodium), and low in fibre,
    46        vitamins and minerals - which describes an average
    47        McDonald's meal - is linked with cancers of the breast, and
    48        bowel, and heart disease.  This is accepted medical fact,
    49        not a cranky theory.  Every year in Britain, heart disease
    50        alone causes about 180,000 deaths. 
    51 
    52        Fast = junk", my Lord, I will not read the next paragraph, 
    53        but there is the "junk" reference which one sees repeated
    54        in the cartoon, where it is asserted that McDonald's junk
    55        food, in our submission, McDonald's junk food, "will kill
    56        you if the slaughterhouse doesn't".
    57
    58        "Paying for the habit.  Chewing is essential for good
    59        health, as it promotes the flow of digestive juices which
    60        break down the food and send nutrients into the blood.

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