Subway exposed: Keeping it ‘fresh’ with toxic preservatives

by: | September 28, 2015
Subway exposed: Keeping it ‘fresh’ with toxic preservatives
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(NaturalHealth365) As one of the largest fast food chains, Subway Restaurants is working effortlessly to make an impact with the lives of people around the world as they campaign to “eat fresh.” With more than 37,000 locations around the world and nearly 30 million Facebook fans, they have become the leading choice for people seeking quick and nutritious meals that the whole family can enjoy.

But are their delicious and made-to-order sandwiches truly “fresh?” Their ingredients say otherwise. While this super food chain has made efforts in reducing or eliminating some harmful ingredients, they are still serving foods with toxic chemicals that make people sick.

So, how fresh are they really?

Subway’s history of trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, and azodicarbonamide

Due to health advocates taking a stand against dangerous chemicals in Subway’s foods, the restaurant did publish a statement to its consumers to serve quality products. In the 2014 statement, they claimed their menu’s improvement by removing artificial trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, and azodicarbonamide. However, removing some of these additives didn’t go without a fight.

For instance, it took over 100,000 petitioners to get Subway to remove azodicarbonamide – a dangerous ingredient approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that is used as a flour bleaching agent and dough conditioner. After the petition launch in 2012, it wasn’t until mid-2014 that Subway actually removed azodicarbonamide.

By the way, the principal use of this hazardous chemical is in the production of plastics and synthetic leathers. The World Health Organization issued a report in 1999 stating that the chemical is linked to respiratory issues, allergies, and asthma. It has been banned in Europe and Australia for a decade, yet the United States and Canada have yet to follow suit.

Will subway’s sinking sales force them to tidy up fresh eats?

Even with the strides Subway has made to do away with certain hazardous chemicals used in the foods they serve, they still have a long way to go before their consumers can actually eat fresh.

Struggling with sinking sales, Subway Restaurants will need to seriously tidy up their sandwich servings? According to The Washington Post and other news reporting agencies, the fast food joint pledges to drop all artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives from its American menus by 2017.

But, Subway has a long way to go. Just take a look at one of their menu items below that is taken from their latest U.S. Product Ingredients list published in August 2015. Do you know what all of these items are?

subway-ingredients

In particular, let’s uncover just a few of these ingredients:

  • TBHQ – a highly effective preservative for unsaturated vegetable oils and many edible animal fats (especially fish). This ingredient has been proven problematic as studies have shown it to be a precursor to stomach tumors and damage to DNA.
  • Dimethylopolysiloxane – a defoaming agent used in food processing, chewing gum base, and canned fruits and juices. While the World Health Organization declared this substance to be non-toxic, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows it to be preserved by formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a well-known irritant that induces oxidative stress and increases disease risk such as cancer.
  • Hydrogenated Soybean Oil – an unnatural dietary fat made by using a chemical process called hydrogenation. It is used to preserve foods. According to the American Heart Association®, trans fats raise bad (LDL) cholesterol levels and lowers good (HDL) cholesterol levels which increases the risk for heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

Subway pledges don’t make fresh foods

Until then, be careful to choose your foods wisely when dining at the fast food joint. As you can see in Subway’s newly released list of ingredients here, their breads still include toxic additives such as soybean oil, refinery syrup, silicon dioxide, nitrates, and much more. Wheat, barley, and rye flours naturally contain gluten. Subway also lists “added” gluten to some of their bread items as well.

So, while pledging to remove several additives from their foods, Subway has not made any commitment to discontinue using breads that are made with genetically modified flours. Nor have they committed to the discontinuance of meats pumped with antibiotics.

Eating “fresh” doesn’t have to be as difficult as Subway makes it. You can still find restaurants that do actually serve real fresh and organic foods. Always check the nutrition facts to stay optimally healthy.

About the author: Abby Campbell is a medical, health, and nutrition research writer. She’s dedicated to helping people live a healthy lifestyle in all aspects – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Abby practices, writes, and coaches on natural preventive care, nutritional medicine, and complementary and alternative therapy.

References:
https://www.subway.com/subwayroot/about_us/PR_Docs/QualityBread.pdf
https://www.ewg.org/release/subway-will-remove-artificial-ingredients
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azodicarbonamide
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043466614005894
https://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/HealthyEating/Trans-Fats_UCM_301120_Article.jsp
https://www.subway.com/Nutrition/Files/usProdIngredients.pdf

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