The way CBC promoted the story and the way the Internet reacted, you would think Subway was using radioactive human remains in its chicken sandwiches.
Charlsie Agro, the Marketplace journalist who made the rounds of other CBC shows to drum up interest in the program’s investigative piece about fast food chicken could barely contain her disgust.
But what is really going on here?
The program found, through DNA testing, there may only be approximately 50 per cent chicken in Subway’s chicken.
It should come as no shock here that a fast food restaurant might be using what the industry calls “restructured meat” or that the company’s advertising would be less than 100 per cent transparent. There are plenty of reasons why you may not want to make fast food (or even restaurant food) your primary diet. Mostly that has to do with sodium and sugar.
In any event, the fast food industry tends to offer chicken as a “healthier alternative.” What they don’t explicitly say is what it is a healthier alternative to, which is the other stuff on their menus (particularly hamburgers). It is obviously not a healthier alternative to cooking the stuff at home from fresh ingredients.
What the CBC investigation turned up is that most of the other half of Subway chicken is soy. Soy, that miracle legume touted for decades as a healthier alternative to meat protein. Soy, the vegan substitute for, well, just about everything animal-derived. Soy, a staple of the Chinese diet for thousands of years.
Despite all of that, by the way, soy is now being vilified by crackpots for all the standard pseudoscientific bogeyman reasons: GMOs, hormones, blah blah blah blah.
In any event, what is Subway’s crime here? One of the women who participated in CBC’s taste test said it was “misrepresentation.”
I don’t think it is, though, at least not under current Canadian law or advertising standards. I looked at a whole bunch of Subway advertising and the worst I can say is it might be mildly deceptive. Nowhere have I ever seen them say their chicken is 100 per cent chicken. If they wanted to, though, they might be able to get away with that.
Here’s what A&W says about its Chicken
Buddy Burger:
“The Chicken Buddy Burger features a 100 per cent white chicken breast patty with pickles and mayo all sandwiched between a soft warm bun.”
What this implies is the patty is 100 per cent chicken, but what it actually says is whatever percentage of chicken is in the patty is 100 per cent white chicken breast.
The A&W Chicken Grill Deluxe scored an 89 per cent chicken in the CBC DNA test. I can’t imagine the Buddy Burger is higher than that, and I bet it is lower.
Personally, it does not bother me that Subway’s Oven-Roasted Chicken is half soy. It tastes great and for as often as I eat fast food (very rarely) I don’t think even the sodium and sugar is going to kill me. I have no qualms about the product’s overall safety; I worry more about where the sandwich artists’ hands have been.
That said, I do think we need to toughen up the consumer protection laws in this country.
It’s all about informed consent and far worse than the fast food industry is the “natural” health product (NHP) industry.
How, for example, do pharmaceutical companies still get away with selling homeopathic products, which have been proven to have no more efficacy than placebo.
Why is Q-Ray able to continue peddling the pseudoscientific nonsense about its bracelets?
Why are acupuncturists allowed to make claims of medical benefits when the actual evidence proves at best their trade may be therapeutic.
At least with Subway chicken-soy you are getting a product that actually has health benefits, (i.e., nutrition).
