9 Nasty Truths About Your Favorite Foods
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Photo: sameold2008, Flickr
When it comes to fast food, Subway is supposed to be the healthy choice – we all feel a little bit angelic when we skip high-fat burgers and fries in favor of a six-inch sub loaded with veggies and lean meats. And while the sandwiches are a better bet when it comes to calories and fat, Subway has a hidden dark side: The "healthy" 9-grain bread is a nutritional wasteland packed with high-fructose corn syrup.
David Zinczenko, author of the "Eat This, Not That" series, exposes the truth in his series The Truth About Your Food. While the bread does technically have nine grains, he says that you might as well choose white. Eight of those nine grains are basically trace amounts, listed at the bottom of the ingredient list under "contains 2% or less." The number one ingredient is regular white flour.
"Essentially this is a white-wheat hybrid with trace amounts of other whole grains like oats, barley, and rye," says Zinczenko.
As for that high-fructose corn syrup, well, there's more of it than any of the grains. With the requisite soda on the side, you're talking about a major corn-syrup overload.
But what about the brown color of the bread? It's not from grains: Zinczenko reveals that it actually comes courtesy of a compound called ammonium sulfate. If the name sounds familiar, it's because it's a commonly used plant fertilizer. It helps the bread achieve that golden hue by nourishing the yeast. Whether it's good for the human body is up for debate.
So what's a sandwich lover to do? Zinczenko says there isn't a better bread choice at the chain, so consumers should consider an alternative that's worked for generations: Make your sandwiches at home.
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6-24-2010 @10:57PM PC said... I hate lettuce and tomatoes, so economically it didn't make sense for me to keep eating there, esp after I discovered the 'chicken' was nuked into submission! I take spinach/pesto wraps and slather on red pepper hummus, sliced turkey, and provolone or mozzerella. MUCH tastier!
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6-24-2010 @1:19PM DeeDee said... I cannot believe I am reading this article, I just had subway for lunch with white bread, not wheat, but I havent been there in over a year and just craved their tuna sub, now I read this crap about subway, honestly I dont know what is coming next.
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6-24-2010 @1:38PM Jayne said... Don't you know? The Corn Growers say that "High fructose corn syrup is good for you -in moderation. Yeah right, and so is radiation. Morons.
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6-24-2010 @1:40PM karen said... you can still eat at subway and not eat the bread its called salad. its a lot of veggies for $5.
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6-25-2010 @6:33PM Hairy Mary said... Eat what you want. You all die in the end. Eating healthy requires you to know what is in your bread, fine I'd buy that. But if you are eating out you're assuming the responsibility to take what you are given, no matter what's in it. It may be bad for you and taste great! It might be good for you and be tofu. YucK! I think you are stressing out about sweeteners in bread if you care at all about this article. Just have to do everything in moderation, exercise, drink plenty of water (NOT SODA) and you may have a chance at seeing a ripe old age. Then again, perfectly healthy people can fall and die any time. I think you just have to do what makes you feel right. Stop listening to the experts, you will never live up to their expectations. Neither do they. Atkins died obese after a fall. Nice to know. George Burns lived to 99 drinking a glass of brandy and smoking. The fact is you have no control over the timeline. So why stress about the ingredients? Forget about it! But Be Responsible for your own choices and don't put the blame on everyone else.
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6-24-2010 @1:51PM oldoneputt said... The high fructose corn syrup in Subway's bread, or any other bread, is used as fermentation food for the yeast in the dough. This allows the dough to rise due to gas production, primarily carbon dioxide. Alcohol is also produced. When the dough is baked in the store the carbon dioxide and alcohol are driven out of the dough by heat and the residual sugar carmelizes, accounting the great aromas coming from the Subway ovens and any bread bakery. In the finished bread there will be no high fructose corn syrup, only dextrose and fructose sugars that account for the sweet taste. This is the same result regardless of the type of sugar used in making the dough, whether you make your own at home, buy whole wheat, or organic. High fructose corn syrup is the most efficient and lowest cost sweetner to use in commercial baking. Nutrionally it is no different than any other type of sugar. Enjoy your bread. It's good for you.
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6-24-2010 @2:16PM H said... I stopped in at a Subway at a rest stop while passing through on a vacation and when I went to order my sub I saw flys all over the meat which were being served to customers. I should have reported this to the health inspector but since we were traveling through. It was a highway truck stop. And no I did not order I walked away.
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6-24-2010 @2:16PM Smittea said... Never enjoyed Subway. Always saw it as a wolf insheep's clothing. ...and it should be called High Fattening Corn Syrup. What do you feed cows to fatten them up? Corn. What do humans consume and get fat? High Fructose Corn Syrup.
We did not have a U.S obesity problem before it existed.
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9-24-2010 @11:08PM Christy said... I like Subway ...and lots of peope complaining are the very ones who sit at home frying their fries in lard.Yes, what you put on anything can make you fat ect.So if you are at home stuffing potato chips and Lard bread sammichthen , Subway is a healthier choice.
Don't blame the place that sells the food, Blame yourself for not controling how much you eat.
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6-24-2010 @2:23PM Joe Papierz Jr said... The only way to eat safely according to the so called experts who write food articles for AOL is to be a farmer and grow our own food organically. Use no pesticides and only natural fertilizers produced by the live stock you will raise, also organically. Never fry anything, only bake, boil or roasting allowed. "Maybe" raw.
Actually, this article is just one of the many articles to provide fodder for comments from people who just want to criticize and complain about something, anything. We have turned into a country full of complainers, moaners and groaners. Reading some of the comments to other articles on AOL pages you would think there is a paid bounty for insulting and making fun of fellow human beings, even children.
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6-24-2010 @2:32PM rosematt said... Yes, it is time we had a government agency oversee food. Just like in NYC, they will regulate the trans-fats allowed, the number of calories per serving, and the size of the servings. This agency will monitor individual purchases of any food boughtin any restaurant by a federally issued card that all Americans will need to present at the time of the order.. If you exceed your allotted number of calories, fats, sugars or carbs, you will be fined and your income tax refund will be lessened by the fine. Now that we have healthcare that we are all contributing to, this will help keep the costs down. The fines collected will go into the high-risk pool of people, so the people who get the service will pay for it. This new card will also be required to purchase any food at a grocery store, and there will be federal inspectors at farmer's markets to make sure that the regulations are adhered to. Sound farfetched? Maybe not, after reading some of the comments on this forum.
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6-24-2010 @3:01PM healthyeaters ;)) said... Comments about what should be expected for $5. We should expect $5 to buy a hearty lunch anywhere in this country. With the 5000% markup on ingredients the price point is nothing but profit for the establishments.
Wake up people! Daily there are tv shows, newpapers and mags which give you meal ideas on a shoestring using quality ingredients from the grocery stores and markets.
We are paying for convenience...we get what we pay for >>compressed meats and breads, etc.
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6-24-2010 @3:48PM Terri said... well than you might as well not make any sandwich's even @ home if you read your label on your hot dog buns or bread you have the same thing as far as the bread goes.
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6-24-2010 @8:25PM bilal said... Crystalline fructose and high fructose corn syrup are not the same thing.
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6-25-2010 @2:25PM DL said... I will quibble, just for the sake of quibbling, with a few things in this article:
1. "The "healthy" 9-grain bread is a nutritional wasteland packed with high-fructose corn syrup."
Packed?
Here is the ingredient list of the bread: "9-GRAIN WHEAT Enriched wheat flour (wheat flour, barley malt, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, yeast, high fructose corn syrup, whole wheat flour, wheat gluten, contains 2% or less of the following: oat fiber, soybean oil, salt, wheat bran, rolled wheat, rye nuggets, dough conditioners (DATEM, sodium stearoyl lactylate), yeast nutrients (calcium sulfate, ammonium sulfate), degermed yellow corn meal, rolled oats, rye flakes, caramel color, triticale flakes, parboiled brown rice, refinery syrup, honey, barley flakes, flaxseed, millet, sorghum flour, azodiacarbonamide, natural flavor (maltodextrin, natural flavor, silicon dioxide, lactic acid)."
The bread has more yeast than HFCS! Why does he say it is packed with HFCS, when it is really packed with yeast! :) Yeast is usually about 1 percent of bread dough. Here it appears to be more than 2 percent, but it can't be much more than that.
The main take-away from the ingredient list should be that nearly all of the flour is enriched wheat flour. There is very little whole grain flour. The fact that it has HFCS is really minor point because there isn't that much.
2. "While the bread does technically have nine grains, he says that you might as well choose white."
You can get the nutritional information from Subway's website.
The white and Nine Grain have approximately equal calories (The white bread has 200 cal per serving while the Nine Grain has 210), fat (2g), sodium (390mg and 410mg). The white bread has 5g of sugars and the whole wheat has 3g. The whole wheat has 4g of fiber and the white bread has 1g. It would be more accurate to say the wheat isn't as healthy as you might think, but if you are eating at Subway and want to reduce sugar and increase fiber, wheat is still a better choice than white bread.
"So what's a sandwich lover to do? Zinczenko says there isn't a better bread choice at the chain, so consumers should consider an alternative that's worked for generations: Make your sandwiches at home."
I agree with this. There are plenty of reasons not to eat at Subway, but the nutritional content of the bread is not one of them. Grocery store bread isn't that different. Here's the nutritional info for two slices (80g) of La Brea's multigrain sandwich bread (a premium grocery store brand):
Calories: 200 cal
Fat: 2g
Sodium: 360mg
Sugars: less than 2g (i.e. 2 times "less than 1g")
Fiber: 4g.
On the whole, it is roughly similar to Subway's bread and has slightly less sodium and sugar. But the difference isn't that stark and, at the end of the day, calories are the most important thing and those are nearly identical. I imagine most other mass-market breads would be similar, or worse.
The thing is: if you want healthy bread, eat whole grain bread (whether it is whole wheat, nine grain, or fifty two grain) because it has fiber. If you want good tasting bread, make it yourself. It isn't that hard. The biggest differences between processed bread and homemade bread are taste and sodium.
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7-25-2010 @2:08AM THE SPECIALIST said...
Thanks telling me ,bought turkey sandwich today only three turkey slices with one cheese slice choosing gain bread for 5 dollars bad ,no more no going back
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