Day 021 - 29 Jul 94 - Page 10
1 whatever you say some people will want to eat meat, or,
whatever you say, some people want to eat sweets? The
2 first is an average requirement for energy protein,
vitamin or mineral, then the ----
3 A. Sorry, I have not quite followed where you are.
4 Q. If you look at (v).
A. Roman (v). Yes, again I think it is important to
5 understand that the recommendations for energy protein,
vitamin and mineral, that these will apply, but if you
6 look in detail at what they say about fat and about
saturated fat, then basically they are coming up with a
7 pragmatic judgment which is an average for the
population. There is actually quite a difference in the
8 approach between looking at energy, protein, vitamins and
minerals and looking at fat, saturated fat, and even sugar
9 and fibre.
10 I mean, prior to the preparation of this report, the
evaluation of the evidence dealing with the energy,
11 protein, vitamin and minerals was quite separate to any
attempt to make a recommendation for the amount of fat,
12 sugar or fibre in the diet. This is the first occasion
they have actually brought the two together.
13
Although they use the term or they have developed the term
14 "dietary reference values", which covers the lower
reference nutrient intake, the estimated average
15 requirement, and they recommended nutrient intake, but
that does not actually apply to the fat, sugar and fibre
16 where they are using the term "population averages";
basically they are coming to a pragmatic judgment on what
17 the level should be for the population as a whole.
18 MR. MORRIS: When you say "pragmatic", is that because they are
recognising what you might call socio-cultural factors in
19 that they would like it to be lower, but they recognise it
is part of the -----
20 A. No. The reason for this is that if you are looking at
a specific vitamin, for example, you can do investigations
21 with specialised iron which you can take out the
particular vitamin and then you can put it back in and you
22 can see how much you need in order to prevent specific
deficiency symptoms. With fat you cannot do that. You
23 have to assemble information from a whole series of
different sources and come up with a judgment at the end
24 of the day as to what is probably the best for the nation
as a whole. That is the difference.
25
Q. When you say "population as a whole", it could be that
26 some people in the population, if they had a diet based
upon the recommended value for, say, saturated fat, it
27 would be actually bad for them?
A. We could not say that, no.
28
Q. So what is the pragmatism then?
29 A. The pragmatism is that it is a judgment based on the
knowledge there as to what would be best for the whole
30 population, and the important thing is that it is
indicating a direction of change for the population as a
