Day 031 - 05 Oct 94 - Page 10

     
     1        food, the major changes in food composition, really a
     2        by-product of the introduction of chemical processing of
     3        food.
     4
     5        If you think about those time scales, and if you think
     6        about those time scales in relation to the evolution of
     7        homosapiens, which took five million years, there is only
     8        one conclusion you can draw, and that is that human
     9        physiology is based on the geno that was established
    10        during that five million year period, and that,
    11        effectively, our physiology is that of a wild animal,
    12        because there is no way that even since we came out of the
    13        Stone Age and, particularly, since the Industrial
    14        Revolution, there has been enough time for any Darwinian
    15        selection to have changed our genetic makeup.
    16
    17        As a consequence of that, I think it is a valid starting
    18        point to say that human physiology has actually adapted to
    19        wild foods rather than contemporary foods.  This is really
    20        what the whole debate is about; that in the last century
         we have changed the nature of food in a very striking way,
    22        and the argument has always been:  "Well, does man not
    23        adapt?"  But the answer is: "Yes", but the adaptation is
    24        actually being expressed in new disease patterns which are
    25        visited at those changes.
    26
    27        When you look at, for example, the wild foods, you come
    28        across -- I have given some reference to this in my
    29        evidence -- some very striking differences, particularly
    30        with regard to meat and animal products and the use of
    31        foods that we obviously made.  If we go back several
    32        centuries in terms of our relationship with the sea, which
    33        was a very close relationship, it was a whole business --
    34        the beginning of Rule Britannia was based on the fishing
    35        fleets during Queen Elizabeth's time; the cod banks were
    36        fought furiously for by the English, not because they
    37        wanted ----
    38
    39   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It is very interesting.  We have to get a
    40        balance somewhere between giving me the information which
         is directly relevant to this case and what I would, no
    42        doubt, find a very interesting but, I fear, too discursive
    43        talk, Professor Crawford. It means you no disrespect
    44        because Ms. Steel really did give you your head.
    45
    46   MS. STEEL:   Sorry.
    47
    48   THE WITNESS:  I think, your Lordship, the important point here
    49        is the change in meat products.
    50 
    51   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, I thought you were coming to that. 
    52 
    53   THE WITNESS:  Would you like me to refer to them?
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  What I think might be a constructive
    56        way of doing it, when we come to a topic like that,
    57        identify it in your report and then, as shortly as you can
    58        while doing justice to what you wish to say, say anything
    59        additional or in expansion on what you have put in your
    60        report, because I can read your report time and time