In a currently airing commercial, they compare a particular Subway sandwich with chicken to a Burger King sandwich with chicken. They cherry pick the fat numbers as an illustration of the relative healthy qualities of each sandwich - the Subway sandwich predictable has little fat, while the Burger King sandwich has an excessive amount. The viewer can then extrapolate from this context free statistic that the Subway sandwich is good for you, while the Burger King sandwich is not. My problem is not that Subway is lying about the Burger King sandwich being good for you - the sandwich they chose for their illustration (the Tender Crisp) is a whopper (ha!) to the body - but both the assertion that Subway sandwiches are good for you and the way they go about doing it.I'm posting about this because of what I recently discovered. I was trying to look up nutrition facts for myself on Subway's website and I saw that they listed the 6 grams of fat subs in their own section, and many of them have over 1000mg of sodium in them. Then, I saw some fine print all the way at the bottom of the page:
Subway deliberately chooses the worst (nutritionally speaking) chicken sandwich Burger King makes. Let's look at one of the worst sandwiches Subway makes - the tuna sub. The 6" version has 530 calories and 31 grams of fat, not to mention over 1000 mg of sodium. The chicken teriyaki (the subject of the commercial, I believe) has over 1200 mg of sodium - almost the entire recommended daily requirement. Burger King makes a chicken whopper - this has only 570 calories and 25 grams of fat - very similar to the Subway tuna (a sandwich that you might foolishly think was actually going to be good for you). I hate cherry picked statistics.
I don't mean to be too hard on Subway here - I actually like some of their sandwiches, I like that you can get fresh vegetables on them (which is in my opinion really the thing that sets them apart from other fast food restaurants). But Subway is still fast food - this means it is processed with way too much salt, and there are plenty of unhealthy options on their menu. You need to be especially careful if you order a 12" sub.
Subs with 6 grams of fat or less include Italian or wheat bread, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, green peppers and olives. All other sandwich values include cheese unless otherwise noted.So the 6g of fat subs don't include cheese or any sauce/mayo. While you might not have cheese, your sub is going to be really dry with just the ingredients they're counting. And whatever you add to change that (sauce, mayo, oil) is going to be where a bunch more fat and calories come from! So I took a look at
Between not including ingredients and just focusing on the fat content comparison (instead of calories and sodium where Subway can get quite high), Subway's being sneaky and making themselves appear to be a healthier option than they really are.
Posted by: dave on Apr 19th, 2007 | 9:49am
That said, it's a lot easier to eat healthy there than at other places.
You can start with a 300 calorie 6" and add another 100 calories with cheese and either honey mustard or sweet onion sauce, and pile it with other good stuff like onions and banana peppers.
It's true the McChicken only has 360 calories, but it's harder to eat just that, without getting fries or anything else.