They Took This Sandwich to the Lab, What They Find is Shocking

to the lab

After they took this sandwich to the lab, it wasn’t long before they found something very shocking indeed. Time for other places to take note, that is for sure.

Unfortunately, the fast-food sandwich franchise Subway is now in a tad bit of hot water due to the contents (or lack thereof?) of their tuna product that they have been offering to their customers.

The lawsuit originally began due to a weekend report from the New York Times where a reporter was taking a serious look at just what, in particular, goes into the tuna offerings of this well-known sandwich chain. This individual went as far as to have these sandwiches tested by a lab, and they ultimately determined that there was NO IDENTIFIABLE TUNA DNA in the sandwiches that had been tested.

The Report

This piece was by Times reporter Jillian Carmel, and she stated that she purchased at least 60 inches of these Subway tuna sandwiches from different Subway locations in Los Angeles.

Carmel said that the first thing she did for her investigative report was to remove the tuna from the sandwiches. After that, she froze it and paid $500 for a lab to test it. This third-party commercial food testing laboratory would eventually conclude that the exact composition of this food is probably not what Subway claims that it is.

The lab did what is known as a PCR test to determine just what the exact composition of the food actually was. True, the lab was already hesitant due to the fact that they were “wary regarding the challenges of identifying the type of fish when it had been cooked at least once, frozen, mixed with mayo and then shipped across the country”, but they agreed to administer this challenging assignment anyway.

Naturally, the lab did not wish to disclose their identity, but once they tested the fish over a 30-day period they quickly determined that there was “no amplifiable tuna DNA present in this sample.”

A spokesperson affiliated with this lab said that these results could signify two different conclusions.

“One, the tuna in this sample is so heavily processed that whatever it is we pulled out, we weren’t able to identify it,” the spokesperson noted. “Or two, we got some, but there just isn’t anything there that can be classified as tuna.”

Carmel was also careful to note that there are several caveats to keep in mind when it comes to this type of testing.

“Once you cook tuna completely, it will denature the DNA,” she noted. “That means that the characteristic properties of the fish will likely be destroyed, and that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to identify what type of fish it used to be.”

Interestingly enough, there was a January report from a seafood list that had been compiled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that showed that there are at least 15 different species of fish that can be classified as “tuna.”

Carmel also noted in her report that the plaintiffs in this lawsuit have now “softened down their original claims.” To wit, instead of claiming that these Subway products have no tuna whatsoever, the plaintiff is now claiming that this product does not contain yellowfin or skipjack tuna as advertised by the chain.

“The complainants filed a new report this June, and it centered not on whether Subway’s tuna was tuna at all, but whether their product could be described as ‘100 percent sustainably caught yellowfin or skipjack tuna,’” Carmel noted.

Carmel was also quick to cite Peter Horn, who is the director of the Ending Illegal Fishing Project at Pew Charitable Trusts.

“In the defense of Subway, or most of these fishmonger individuals, in actuality the farther you get the fish from the bone, the harder it can be to recognize what type of fish that it is,” he noted in regards to the suit. “Most of us can see the fish on the bone, and we notice that the skin is intact, and we can still recognize what type of fish that it is. You can drop the head and tail off of it, but you can still probably recognize it even though it might be more difficult. If you take the skin off it, you take it off the bone and then you cut that into slices then you’re only sort of saying, ‘Right, but where’s the color and texture?’”

The company declined to comment on the Times report’s findings.

Another Test, Different Results

It wasn’t soon after this that Inside Edition did a test of their own, and they sent samples of the tuna sandwich from three different Queens locations and they determined that these specimens were INDEED TUNA…..that definitely thickens the plot, to say the least. This definitely begs the question: do you think that these Subway sandwiches are made from real tuna?