Day 269 - 25 Jun 96 - Page 16


     
     1
     2   Q.   "I consider it unlikely that people persuaded to eat
     3        regularly at McDonald's would be uninfluenced.  They are
     4        most likely to believe what they are told, namely that such
     5        meals are nutritious and eat in a similar style at home.
     6
     7        There is no doubting the fact that death from heart disease
     8        rose strikingly from 1950 to the late 1980's in parallel
     9        with a rise in the amount of dietary saturated fat and
    10        associated trans-isomers.  It is also true that in the UK
    11        the bulk of that rise was due largely to a rise in animal
    12        fat intake and trans-isomers from hydrogenated or hardened
    13        vegetable and marine oils.
    14
    15        McDonald's is proud of its market leadership and has a Web
    16        site on the Internet proclaiming that 28 million people eat
    17        each day worldwide at its outlets and that it is now in 80
    18        countries.  In the USA 49% of McDonald's users are 'heavy'
    19        (1-3 times a week) and 23% are 'super heavy', i.e. 4 plus
    20        times a week.  Such a diet is clearly of serious concern.
    21
    22        What happens in America generally happens in the UK some
    23        ten years later.  This American experience with such a high
    24        proportion of heavy users, gives some ideas of knock-on
    25        effect and future trends in the UK.  The context of
    26        McDonald's in this respect is simply that it is, in its own
    27        admission, and in its own practice of increasing its market
    28        encroachment, one of the most powerful forces winning
    29        people over to eating this type of food.  The conclusion is
    30        that the figures given above for estimated influence on
    31        heart disease in the UK, are likely to be an under estimate
    32        in view of the knock-on effect on food choice at home and
    33        in vulnerable groups.
    34
    35        2.2.2 A major reason for the focus on dietary fats:
    36        I refer to my previous evidence in which I illustrated the
    37        contrast of wild and domestic carcass fat and protein
    38        production.  The carcass of the modern intensively reared
    39        beef animal yields 45 units of dietary energy from protein
    40        and 225 units from fat.  In the wild antecedent to our
    41        beef, the carcass yields 60 units of protein and nutrients
    42        compared to 36 units from fat.  The fat in both cases is
    43        largely saturated fat.
    44
    45        Human physiology was adapted over several million years to
    46        the lower saturated fat intake.  In the few generations
    47        during which this rise in animal fat has taken place there
    48        is no way that humans could have adapted through any
    49        Darwinian process of selection to this type of food.  This
    50        point is made again to explain the enormity of the change
    51        from our physiological and genetic heritage and why there
    52        is so much concern amongst scientists and indeed, why so
    53        much evidence has come forward with such consistency on
    54        heart disease and the amount of saturated fat eaten today.
    55
    56        2.2.3.  McDonald's as a nutritious meal:
    57        I agree that in itself McDonald's meal does provide
    58        important nutrients.  However, those same nutrients can be
    59        obtained in other ways without the saturated fat load.  I
    60        append a table showing how a McDonald's meal compares in

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