Day 032 - 06 Oct 94 - Page 52


     
     1        East of England.
     2        A.  To her.  She was one of the consumers we asked to
     3        write to McDonald's to see whether they would give this
     4        information.
     5
     6   MS. STEEL:  So the date of the letter is 25th November 1987.
     7        Just for the record, it says:  "Thank you for your letter
     8        regarding the ingredients in our products.  We do not
     9        publish a comprehensive list of ingredients.  However, I
    10        will investigate the particular ingredients you are
    11        interested in and contact you in due course".
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What was the page in document 54 you were
    14        reading from?
    15
    16   MS. STEEL:   Page 125.  It is an internal page number.  Looking
    17        at the information that was available at that time from
    18        McDonald's, you need to get pink volume -- unless you have
    19        a copy of the Nutrition Guide itself -- VI, No. 9?
    20        A.  I have the third edition, July 1985.
    21
    22   Q.   That is the same one.  Looking at that, does that appear
    23        to give all the information that a concerned consumer
    24        might want to know?
    25        A.  I do not believe it does.  It fails to give sugar
    26        levels in the foods listed and I think, anyway, most
    27        customers and consumers would need a calculator and
    28        perhaps certain qualifications in dietetics to convert
    29        these figures into something meaningful for a healthy
    30        diet.  Also, of course, it gives no ingredients listings,
    31        which many of the people I was in touch with at the time
    32        of doing the book were particularly concerned about.  They
    33        wanted to know about additives and other types of
    34        ingredients besides the obvious.
    35
    36   Q.   This is probably a daft question, but there is no
    37        reference to saturated fat on there, is there, or there is
    38        no column for saturated fat?
    39        A.  True.
    40
    41   Q.   Would that be something that was important?
    42        A.  Clearly, in 1983 or 4 the NACNE Report came in which
    43        it focused specifically on both total fats and saturated
    44        fats, also on salts and sugars.  This does not give you
    45        saturated fats.  It does not give you sugars.  So in both
    46        those counts it would be difficult and, anyway, as I have
    47        said, it would be difficult to interpret from these sorts
    48        of figures whether you are eating a high or low fat food
    49        or a food particularly rich in sugars or saturated fats.
    50 
    51   Q.   Actually, this might be worth pointing out, that at the 
    52        bottom of the page that says "What we put into our food", 
    53        it says:  "McDonald's would like to acknowledge the help
    54        of the British Nutrition Foundation in considering and
    55        commenting on this publication."   Bearing in mind the
    56        briefing paper from the British Nutrition Foundation that
    57        we looked at earlier, do you think this would be an
    58        adequate response to those concerns expressed in there?
    59        A.  Well, the concerns expressed in there, by and large,
    60        do not talk about providing information to the public, but

Prev Next Index