What's In Fast Food? Subway Chicken Sandwiches Not Made From Chicken, Recent Investigation Finds

It turns out, "chicken" doesn’t always mean chicken—especially when it comes to fast food. A recent investigation into some of Subway’s most popular sandwiches revealed that the meat inside both the Oven Roasted Chicken sandwich and the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich was comprised of only 50 percent chicken DNA. The other half was determined to be soy.

A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Marketplace investigation sought to determine what’s really inside certain fast-food products. Matt Harnden, a DNA researcher at Trent University’s Wildlife Forensic DNA Laboratory tested sandwiches from Wendy’s, McDonald’s, A&W, Tim Horton’s and Subway. The results, published Friday, showed Subway’s oven roasted chicken was found to contain only 53.6 percent chicken DNA, while its chicken strips contained a mere 42.8 percent chicken DNA.

A piece of meat direct from a chicken would contain 100 percent chicken DNA. However, processing and marinating would lower that number. Products from Wendy’s, McDonald’s and A&W all averaged between 85 percent and 89 percent chicken DNA, respectable proportions when it comes to fast food. Subway’s percentages of real chicken, however, were so low, they had to be tested again.

Subway said it could not “confirm the veracity of the results of the lab testing" and said its chicken recipes call for one percent or less of soy protein.

“All of our chicken items are made from 100 percent white meat chicken which is marinated, oven roasted and grilled. We tested our chicken products recently for nutritional and quality attributes and found it met our food quality standards,” Subway told CBC in response. “We will look into this again with our supplier to ensure that the chicken is meeting the high standard we set for all of our menu items and ingredients.”

It’s not the first time Subway has come under fire for the contents of its food. In 2014, it was revealed that Subway was using a chemical in its bread that was also used to make yoga mats. Azodicarbonamide, dubbed “the yoga mat chemical” by the public, was eventually phased out by the company after widespread consumer outcry.