Subway Just as Unhealthy as McDonald

[Hum]

If you watched the London Olympics last summer, you saw a parade of top athletes touting the nutritional qualities of their favorite eatery: Subway. Watching Apolo Ohno or Robert Griffin III bite into a veggie footlong with avocado or hearing that Subway is ?the official training restaurant of athletes everywhere,? you might get the idea that the food served at the chain isn?t that bad for you?that it?s even healthy.

Think again.

Researchers from the University of California Los Angeles found that despite claims to the contrary, Subway is just as unhealthy as the oft-reviled golden arches of McDonald?s?which long had the most locations in the country of any fast-food chain until Subway surpassed it in 2011.

?Every day, millions of people eat at McDonald?s and Subway, the two largest fast food chains in the world,? Dr. Lenard Lesser?who led the research while a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar in the department of family medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health?said in the UCLA statement. ?With childhood obesity at record levels, we need to know the health impact of kids? choices at restaurants.?

Lesser, who is now a researcher at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute, did so by recruiting 97 adolescents, ages 12 to 21, to purchase meals at McDonald?s and Subway restaurants at a shopping mall in Carson, CA. The young people consumed an average of 1,038 calories at McDonald?s. They consumed an average of 955 calories at Subway?a statistically insignificant difference from McDonald?s. The Institute of Medicine recommends that students consume no more than 850 calories in school lunches.

While total calories were slightly lower at Subway, the average calories per sandwich purchased and sodium content were both higher at Subway. The Subway sandwiches contained an average of 784 calories, versus 572 at McDonald?s. The sodium content at both restaurants was three times higher than the IOM recommended daily dose: 2,149 mg at Subway versus 1,829 mg at McDonald?s.

While the results may surprise the average consumer, they did not catch nutritionist Lisa R. Young off guard. At fast-food restaurants commonly thought to be healthier, Young says customers may even eat worse than they would at a chain thought to be less healthy?a phenomenon known as the ?health halo.? Because diners assume they?re eating healthier overall, they may not pay close enough attention to the nutritional content of what they?re ordering. And at the end of the day, Subway and McDonald?s are still fast food.

?I do not recommend fast food if you want to eat healthy,? says Young, author of The Portion Teller?s Diet. ?With a few exceptions, fast food is still fast food?high in fat and calories.?

source

[t_r_nelson]

Maybe the average is higher but I can guarantee I'll end up with a healthier sandwich if I pick what I'm going to have on it. Skip the cheese, mayo, oil, sauces. Put on baby spinach, cucumbers, tomato, etc..

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

If you watched the London Olympics last summer, you saw a parade of top athletes touting the nutritional qualities of their favorite eatery:

No... No I did not. The BBC coverage did not contain adverts ;)

[majortom1981]

This study has a HUGE flaw which they kind of hint at. At subway you can make your sub a lot healthier. I usually get only vinegar on my sub which has 0 calories . I also pick the one with the least amount of calories listed to start with.

They basically wrote down the calories of what people were ordering. Based on this they say subway is just as bad. Also by the looks of it the fries were not counted in their calories counting for mcdonalds.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Subway you have the choice to eat healthy or unhealthy.

This review shows that consumers choice to eat unhealthy at Subway.

[spacer]

True the caloric difference might be insignificant. But what about the fat content, cholesterol, oil? There are many, many other things that make food healthy or unhealthy. Did this "study" even bother to look at the other stuff?

[Yorak]

The idiots that did the research were probably having them load it up with extra meat, cheese and sauces. How dumb can you be to not realize that adding those things also adds calories, carbohydrates, sodium, etc.?

[Mr. Dee]

I never been to one, but the next time I travel to the states I am going check one out.

[Andre S. Veteran]

Calories are not really a problem unless they come from fructose, so it'd be interesting to know where these calories come from in Subway sandwiches vs a typical McDonald meal. If people order a large soft drink with their Subway sandwich then it's not really the sandwich that's the problem. ;)

I'm more worried about the sodium content, 2000+mg is an astounding amount, how do they manage to put that much? Extra salt? BBQ sauce?

[Hum]

Maybe the average is higher but I can guarantee I'll end up with a healthier sandwich if I pick what I'm going to have on it. Skip the cheese ...

Sacrilege ! :o

[leesmithg]

As long as you do enough exercise to burn up the calories you don't need for normal respiration then the 'healthy' argument falls flat on it's face.

If you eat 5,000 calories (equal to 1lb of calorie mass) but, however do enough exercise (as a man 2,500, woman 3,000) to burn off the excess

then eat 5 big macs and a bucket of French fried if they equate to 2,500 (man) 3,000 (woman) respectively to calorific value.

[BillyJack]

If they want to do research on healthy fast food they need to include all aspects of the food. It is not just about calories. How about sugar, salt, preservatives, and chemicals.

[theyarecomingforyou]

Subway differs to the competition in that it offers customers what they want. That means it can be very healthy (e.g. a 6" low fat sub with low fat sauce) or very unhealthy (e.g. a 12" meatball sub with cheese and mayo). It really is up to the individual. The one area I would say criticism is due is the constant push to upsell larger subs and meal deals, which is little different to the "supersize" scandal that hit McDonald's.

[The Laughing Man]

Subway is garbage regardless of the study.

[psionicinversion]

You probably expect the people in the study that eat the unhealthy stuff to also eat unhealthy anyway so, just a normal day. they should of got ppl who were health freaks to unhealthy eaters to do the study and find out what they would have and what group ordered what. whether they chose to reduce what was on there sandwich or increase it etc

[Argi]

Don't order a footlong - pretty simple really. Footlong will be ~1000 calories which is close to 2/3 of your daily requirement. 6-inch will be about half that which is about perfect.

[AJerman]

Looks like you guys covered it all pretty well. Not much more left to say. :laugh: Next thing you know they are going to come out with a revolutionary study that says that your salad is less healthy than McDonalds because they tested a salad loaded with fried chicken, bacon, cheese and salad dressing.

People that come out with assinine "studies" like this are just an insult to those of us with enough brain to comprehend these things without having to have someone tell us.

It's the same as any sandwich shop vs burger place. For example, just 30 minutes ago I walked to the cafeteria here at work. I thought for a second whether I wanted a burger or a sub. I could have gotten a small burger and nothing else, or a 12" sub filled with meat and cheese and mayonaise, and the sub would have been worse for me. Doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that out. (I picked a 6" turkey sandwich with just mustard btw, I will NOT pass on cheese though :p)

The bottom line is, there is almost nothing at McDonalds which is "healthy", whereas there is a huge variety of options at Subway. What you decide is up to you!

[hagjohn]

Horrible study. There is a big difference where the calories come from.

[moloko]

i like the chicken breast with lettuce, green peppers, and bananna peppers on flat bread. YUM and healthy.

Also: how can you not count french fries in the study. Those are the first thing I eat.

[Hum]

How did that fat guy lose weight eating Subway ... ?

[Digit12345]

Next thing you know they are going to come out with a revolutionary study that says that your salad is less healthy than McDonalds because they tested a salad loaded with fried chicken, bacon, cheese and salad dressing.

Or they can just take an unusually large serving of salad and determine it has more calorie content. :laugh:

[vcfan]

cholesterol in food doesn't affect cholesterol in blood. high cholesterol in the body is mostly hereditary. high fructose corn syrup is not worse for you than any other sugar or carb for that matter. it gets a bad rap because its cheap and added to everything,and people overconsume. saturated fat is not bad for you and doesn't cause heart disease. its never been proven. its actually detrimental to cut it out. people on high saturated fat diets lose weight all the time and have really nice blood profiles.high sodium is also not a problem if you drink enough fluids and are active. the groups that say a 2000mg limit you shouldn't exceed is so dumb and can be dangerous if you are very active because not enough sodium will cause dehydration and your kidneys will take a hit.

what the problem is is over consumption of food that's not helped by the fact that its really easy to buy very high calorie,great tasting foods for so cheap. also not being active and not getting the proper circulation does way more damage. that's the problem,not this BS singling out of certain macronutrients and foods. mcdonalds is not your problem. subway isn't your problem. you are the problem. buying 2 bigmacs and a large fries and a drink the size of your head is.Buying a burger,a small or medium fries,and a medium drink,depending on your needs isn't that bad. We've seen people on low fat diets,high fat diets,low carb diets,high carb diets, low protein diets,high protein diets ALL lose weight,have awesome blood profiles and healthy as they have ever been.

[Sandor]

They basically wrote down the calories of what people were ordering.

As opposed to the calorie intake of sandwiches people didn't order/eat?

[xendrome]

But if we name the parent company of Subway "Doctor's Associates, Inc" then it must be healthy right?

[typu]

... that Subway is ?the official training restaurant of athletes everywhere,? you might get the idea that the food served at the chain isn?t that bad for you?that it?s even healthy.

Think again.

lol of course that stuff is not healthy. none of that kind of food is. it might be healthy from a todays definition of the average. but it is far away from being really healthy.

6 months ago I started to begin eating healthy from an educated point of view. I can tell you that there is a HUGE difference of eating healthy from a marketing point of view compared to non industralized food.

heck i even made my own bred this weekend. where I live people eat lots of bred. we even have a bred culture. real bread, not that sandwich bread stuff. but even that quality bread sucks compared to when you make your own.

all food that is some way or another alleviated from its pure form is losing quality.

but tbh - i dont blame anyone. browsing the super market i realized how difficult it is to eat healthy. 80-90% of all you find in the super market is pure junk. it is sad really... i had to learn first to differentiate between "good" and "bad" food.