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DNA Test Shows Subway's 'Chicken' Only Contains 50 Percent Chicken (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the sugar-spice-and-everything-nice dept.

According to an investigation by Canadian media outlet, CBC, the chicken in Subway Restaurants' chicken sandwiches may only contain around 50 percent chicken -- the rest of it is soy, spices and preservatives. The investigation involved DNA testing chicken sandwiches collected from five popular fast food restaurants. While the rest of the sandwiches contained mostly chicken, Subway's oven-roasted chicken and the chicken strips in its Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich clocked in with just 53.6 percent and 42.8 percent chicken, respectively. Ars Technica reports: Among all the chicken sampled, there was a total of about 50 ingredients other than chicken identified. The chicken samples had an average of 16 ingredients. Some of the ingredients are expected, such as salt and other seasonings. But many were commercial preservatives and fillers. One commonality was that they all had high levels of salt. Subway responded to the CBC in a statement: "SUBWAY Canada cannot confirm the veracity of the results of the lab testing you had conducted. However, we are concerned by the alleged findings you had conducted." You can read the full statement here.

19 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Read the response... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Informative

    The companies in question - Wendy's, Subway, McDonalds, Tim Horton's - responded HERE.

    Their responses sound reasonable, so either they are lying or the "DNA tests" are not accurate.

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    1. Re:Read the response... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      All but Subway were over 80% chicken. That's what you would expect, they are quite open about adding seasoning and yeast etc. No problem at all.

      Subway's result needs explanation. It can't be accounted for by any ligitimate preservation or seasoning.

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    2. Re:Read the response... by lgw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe I'm just the odd one out, but I really don't care if it's a mix of chicken and soy as long as it tastes good. Soy is not in any way unhealthy, and has plenty of protein.

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    3. Re: Read the response... by hackwrench · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I wouldn't mind if they were upfront about what I was getting. That's where I have a problem.

    4. Re:Read the response... by skam240 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The author of the above post did not state they had a preference for single malt, you made that up. The author in fact goes out of their way to say they enjoy both blended and single malts.

      What the author of the above post is saying here, basically, is that they dont like being lied to which seems perfectly reasonable to me.

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  2. kill the salt, kill the sugar by gtall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is impossible to get any processed food that is not laden with salt and sugar. It contributes to high blood pressure and diabetes. Do the food companies care? Or will shipping "product" take precedence over their customers' health?

    1. Re:kill the salt, kill the sugar by BeauHD · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nope, salt and sugar sell and companies really only care about profits. You might (not) like this article: https://science.slashdot.org/s...

    2. Re:kill the salt, kill the sugar by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually salt doesn't contribute to high blood pressure: https://academic.oup.com/ajh/article/28/3/362/2743418/Relationship-Between-Nutrition-and-Blood-Pressure. This is something that's been shown multiple times in research for a quite a while, but can't seem to overcome this myth that's been propagated for years that it's become one of those things that everyone just "knows" and no one questions or thinks about.

      Sure, salt can make your blood pressure go up, but it would be weird if it didn't. Increase the amount of sodium intake and some of that is absorbed by you cells which then take on more water to maintain a balance in concentration. This makes them swell (which is why if someone is severely dehydrated you can kill them if you give them water too rapidly) and naturally add pressure against blood vessels and increase blood pressure.

    3. Re:kill the salt, kill the sugar by eyenot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A similar myth is that fatty foods lead to clogged arteries. I won't bother to go fetch links but let's just say my room mate was drunk and literally screaming this at me at 2AM once, over and over like a child, and the only way to talk him down was to promise I'd go research it at reputable websites and bring him "the proof". Yes you can refute this myth at such as CDC, Mayo Clinic, etc.

      If anything, most arteries problems are caused by high sodium. Salts osmose water out out cells, causing "hardening", leading to arterial damage, attracting clotting factor, which builds up and is compounded with some forms of cholesterol in some people (but can still be bad enough on its own), which leads to clogged (clotted) arteries. Then you run into this terrible catch-22 with vitamin K where K is needed to repair the arterial damage but K also goes into producing clotting factor. So the doctors tell you to cut K completely out of your diet, eat liver-killing blood thinners, and shift the problem to yet another part of your body while also synthesizing a condition of hemophilia.

      If anything, people worried about clots should cut any high intake of salt out (but not entirely out), not fat out of their diet. Blood pressure completely aside.

      And something else fun to learn is that there is a gut flora that produces something called TMAO that can compound and/or cause any artery problems you might have. The great news? The gut flora produces TMAO from l-carnitine. So take your doctor seriously if they recommend cutting red meat intake entirely.

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  3. Spin it properly by mi · · Score: 5, Funny

    However, we are concerned by the alleged findings you had conducted

    Piffle! That's a totally wrong spin! According to TFA, most of the other 50% is soy — the famously humane and environment-friendly replacement for meat.

    Restaurants should proudly admit to being ahead of their customers on both counts — and wow to make their sandwiches 90% meat-free by 2050, or something like that.

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    1. Re:Spin it properly by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Insightful

      However, we are concerned by the alleged findings you had conducted

      Piffle! That's a totally wrong spin! According to TFA, most of the other 50% is soy — the famously humane and environment-friendly replacement for meat.

      If Subway wants to serve 50/50 soy/chicken "meat" they are welcome to. They have to stop calling it chicken, though.
      If I'm paying for chicken, I expect to get chicken, regardless of healthiness/environmental factors.

    2. Re:Spin it properly by sconeu · · Score: 5, Funny

      Alternative Chicken

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  4. Read the response in detail & between the line by tpgp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, read the response, but like all communications from large companies, you have to read it critically

    For example, from the end of Subway's response:

    We will look into this again with our supplier to ensure that the chicken is meeting the high standard we set for all of our menu items and ingredients.

    Translate this into normal english and it is "We do not adequately QA our supply chain & our lowest-bid supplier is giving us a chicken/soy blend. We only care about this because we just got caught out"

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  5. Welcome to the meat industry! by RyanFenton · · Score: 4, Informative

    I enjoy meat myself - but accept that the meat industry is historically filled with some of the worst intentions on the face of the planet. There's a reason that one of the big counters to libertarian philosophy is historical regulation of the meat industry... if they can get away with it, you'd better believe that the industry is going to break just about every rule, custom, ethical guideline and concept of decent human interaction possible.

    Meat, it ain't pretty, it's rarely pure (the fish industry is nigh-hilarious with how it labels things), but it's still an important part of our filthy culture.

    Cutting a 50% mix of soy into chicken isn't shocking compared to most things - and actually matches what I remember of that particular flavor whenever I decided to try chicken again at Subway. Now that I've gotten better at cooking for myself, I find a $6 footlong to be actually a fairly expensive sandwich.

    Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go make a nice couple of egg/bacon/veggie sandwiches. I'm sure it's not completely ethical, and likely contains some genetic engineering (ooh, scary), but for the price, it's a marvel of modern industry and flavor!

    Ryan Fenton

  6. Re:Read the response in detail & between the l by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 5, Funny
    Subway's latest communique:

    We recognize that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so our imitation chicken is leading us all into a new, more courageous* future, where we will be 100%, BRAVE, not CHICKEN!

    "courageous" is the intellectual property of Apple Inc. "chicken" includes, but is not limited to, dog, cat, yeast, nuclear waste, chicken feathers, beaks, claws, recycled newspaper (for that genuine cardboard-y takeout taste).May include nuts. May not include chicken..

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  7. Re:The Donald just tweeted... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 5, Funny

    FAKE NEWS!

    Of course it's fake news. It's about fake chicken!!!.

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  8. Re:Read the response in detail & between the l by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, I'm personally relieved. I wouldn't want anything that was made with some percentage of unreal chicken.

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  9. Canadian media outlet, CBC... by hyades1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    CBC is not a "media outlet". It is Canada's national broadcaster. And it does a damned good job on its news and public affairs, routinely shaming the US networks with its national and international coverage.

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  10. It also explains why some folks get sick by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    eating subway. Lots of folks can't handle processed soy protein.

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