Claims That Subway Cheats Customers With Fake Tuna and Harmful Chemicals Are Misleading.

Social media posts have recently raised concerns about Subway’s sandwiches, claiming that the company serves fake tuna, provides insufficient amounts of chicken, and uses harmful additives in its products that endanger consumers’ health. 

The claim suggests that the Subway Tuna sandwich does not contain any tuna. It rather uses processed sludge of chicken, pork, and soy. The bread is legally classified as cake by the Supreme Court of Ireland due to excess amount of sugar. Its roasted chicken barely contains 50% of chicken.

However, Fact Crescendo found the claim to be misleading. It is true that Subway had faced lawsuits related to the claim but all these lawsuits were either dismissed or not supported by credible evidence.

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Fact Check- 

Is Subway cheating customers with fake tuna meat? 

The discussion about Subway serving fake tuna meat in its sandwiches started in 2021 after a lady from California filed a lawsuit against the company. She claimed that the company’s tuna sandwiches and wraps did not actually contain real tuna and may have contained other ingredients. 

However, in July 2023, the lawsuit was permanently dismissed. The plaintiff and Subway agreed to end the lawsuit permanently. As a result, the case was dismissed ‘with prejudice,’ which means the same claims cannot be filed in court again in the future.

The New York Times independently investigated if subway’s tuna sandwich contains real tuna. The agency bought tuna sandwiches from several Subway stores and sent them to a laboratory for testing. The lab could not find any identifiable tuna DNA in the samples. However, experts said this did not necessarily prove that there was no tuna in the sandwiches. The tuna could have been so heavily processed and cooked that its DNA was damaged and difficult to detect. On the other hand, Subway strongly denied the allegations and maintained that its tuna products contain real tuna. 

In 2021, Inside Edition reported that after two customers in California claimed that tuna sandwiches do not contain tuna or have any ingredient that constitutes tuna, they sent samples of tuna for testing to the Applied Food Technologies lab in Florida for DNA testing. The report clarified that the sandwich contains real tuna. 

The ingredient list of Subway’s tuna sandwich also mentioned it contains tuna along with milk and soy. You can check the ingredients here. 

Is Subway’s bread actually cake?

The claim that Subway’s breads are actually cakes and not breads came from a 2020 ruling by the Supreme Court of Ireland. The court found that Subway’s bread contained too much sugar to qualify as bread. But, this ruling was made in the context of taxation on the product and not about defining the product. Under Irish tax Law, bread can contain only a small amount of sugar to be considered a tax-exempt staple food. Subway’s bread exceeded that limit and did not qualify for the tax exemption. 

Some reports simplified this story by saying that Subway breads are closer to cake for tax purposes. But the court did not rule that Subway was selling cake instead of bread. The decision was in the context of tax and not what the food actually is. 

Subway’s roasted chicken contains huge amounts of soy and less chicken: 

This claim started getting viral after an investigation done by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 2017. In 2017, BBC reported that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had claimed that an independent DNA analysis had found Subway’s chicken contains only 50% actual chicken. This claim was denied by Subway who clarified that their own lab result found less than 1% soy protein in chicken. Subway had said that their chicken is made with 100% chicken, spices and marinades

We checked the ingredients of Subway’s Rotisserie-Style Chicken. It was mentioned that the product contains 100% all-white meat, antibiotic-free, sourced from trusted suppliers along with water to retain moisture. Apart from this Subway uses seasonings like salt, paprika, thyme, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper and soyabean oil. 

Subway cold cuts contain sodium nitrate which is carcinogenic: 

Sodium nitrate is a common additive in processed meat products to preserve shelf life and to give them flavor and pink color. In 2017, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) made a safety assessment of sodium nitrate and found it to be safe when used within the approved limits. The panel did not find any evidence that the additive is carcinogenic or genotoxic. For the safety of the consumers, an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) value of 3.7 mg of nitrate per kilogram of body weight per day was established. EFSA also noted that nitrates can be converted into nitrites in the body but the amounts produced from normal dietary exposure are not expected to cause significant health problems.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), sodium nitrate is permitted for use as a curing and preservative agent in meat and poultry products. This additive is considered safe when used within the permitted limits. 

Conclusion:

Fact Crescendo found the claim to be misleading. Subway is not cheating its customers. The viral claims are based on misleading reports. It contains real tuna and chicken.