There's been an interesting, ongoing discussion about the authenticity of Subway's tuna since two Subway customers filed a lawsuit against America's biggest fast-food chain last January. They argued that Subway "falsely advertised" its tuna as real tuna, while alleging that the ingredient Subway serves is "anything but tuna." Now, the New York Times has completed an investigation of multiple samples of Subway's tuna. The verdict? A fish-testing lab says it's hard to say.
On Saturday, Julia Carmel, the reporter who conducted the investigation just published in the New York Times, said on Twitter: "In January, @Choire thought it would be funny to test a Subway tuna sandwich." She refers to fellow writer and former New York Times Style section editor Choire Sicha, as the two seemed to have hit on a worthy question by fishing around about Subway's tuna—as Carmel tweeted: "Nearly 6 months later, I can finally show the world this 2,500-word deep dive into the world of Big Tuna."
It was a "deep-dive" indeed, as the journalist described her method of procuring samples of Subway tuna sandwiches from three Los Angeles-area Subway restaurants. "It seemed logical to order only tuna on the sandwiches—no extra vegetables, cheese or dressing—as the lab was already wary about the challenges of identifying a fish that's been cooked at least once, mixed with mayo, frozen and shipped across the country." Then, Carmel reported, "I was told that if I packed a Ziploc of Subway tuna into a Styrofoam shipping cooler with a few ice packs and mailed it across the country, the lab could test it."
Carmel reports that in a month's time, the lab (which requested not to be named in the New York Times report) relayed their findings, as quoted in this New York Times article excerpt:
"No amplifiable tuna DNA was present in the sample and so we obtained no amplification products from the DNA," the email read. "Therefore, we cannot identify the species."
The spokesman from the lab offered a bit of analysis. "There's two conclusions," he said. "One, it's so heavily processed that whatever we could pull out, we couldn't make an identification. Or we got some and there's just nothing there that's tuna." Subway declined to comment on the lab results. [Reply]
Originally Posted by loochy:
people actually buy the tuna in oil?
I used to buy that because it's what I got as a kid. Then at some point I finally looked at the labels and realized that I was eating a lot of calories of oil, so I switched.
Why do they make cans of tuna in both oil and water? They don't really taste much different. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Dunerdr:
Yes, Italians, the only meat cheaper than tuna.
I remember learning a few years ago (from a Subway corporate exec…) that their “Italian” products are actually just Turks dyed with bronzer. For legal reasons, they do contain like 1% Snooki… [Reply]
