UPDATE, Tuesday, March 21: Subway issued a notice of action against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on March 9, alleging its claims about Subway’s chicken meat are “defamatory and absolutely false,” a spokesperson for the chain told HuffPost. Subway is seeking $210 million in damages.
PREVIOUSLY:
Subway says its chicken is the real deal, despite some claims to the contrary.
The chain’s chicken meat contains only about half real chicken DNA, according to the results of an investigation commissioned by Canada’s CBC News. The rest is mostly soy, the CBC says.
It’s often reported that fast food chicken has added ingredients. But Subway says the CBC’s claims are false, at least concerning its chicken served in both the U.S. and Canada.
“The accusations made... about the content of our chicken are absolutely false and misleading,” a Subway spokesman told HuffPost in a statement. “Our chicken is 100% white meat with seasonings, marinated and delivered to our stores as a finished, cooked product... We do not know how [CBC News] produced such unreliable and factually incorrect data, but we are insisting on a full retraction.”
The news report includes results from DNA tests of chicken at a number of fast-food restaurants. McDonald’s and Wendy’s were found to have around 85 percent chicken DNA in their products. Subway’s results were dramatically lower: Its oven roasted chicken was found to have 53.6 percent chicken DNA, and its chicken strips came out to just 42.8 percent.
Fast-food chicken often contains fillers like soy and water to maximize value and taste, and may even contain other chicken parts like fat or blood vessels, according to NPR. Indeed, Subway’s ingredients list mentions add-ins like water, soy protein and “chicken flavor” in addition to chicken breast. However, Subway Canada told CBS that the soy protein doesn’t add up to more than 1 percent of the total product.
Until this is all sorted out, we’ll be making our own chicken dinner at home. Here are some of our favorite recipes:
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