Subway is a popular sandwich chain for a reason, and yet, they've been under fire for some months over one of their protein offerings: the tuna. Lawsuits filed against the chain have questioned whether or not Subway's tuna sandwiches and salads are made with real tuna.
According to research conducted by an independent lab recently, there is no tuna DNA in Subway's tuna, People reports.
Since January of this year, Subway has been on the wrong end of a class action lawsuit claiming that the chain does not, in fact, use real tuna. Rather, they use synthetic ingredients that imitate the fish, in order to cut costs.
Time and time again, Subway has vehemently denied the claims, calling the lawsuit meritless, Business Insider reports.
The chain asserts that they only buy skipjack and yellowfin tuna and use those in their menu.
The New York Times decided to put Subway's tuna to the test. They purchased "60 inches" worth of Subway tuna sandwiches" from three separate restaurants in Los Angeles. The tuna from each sandwich was removed, frozen, and sent to an independent lab to be tested, according to Business Insider.
People writes that the lab sent The New York Times the following statement: "No amplifiable tuna DNA was present in the sample and so we obtained no amplification products from the DNA. Therefore, we cannot identify the species."
In other words, who knows what that "tuna" really is.
"One, it's so heavily processed that whatever we could pull out, we couldn't make an identification. Or we got some and there's just nothing there that's tuna," a representative of the lab said in a statement to The New York Times.
According to fishing experts, fish like tuna become denatured when they're cooked. This essentially means that their protein breaks down, which would make it harder to detect their DNA sequences, Business Insider states.
So... does that mean that Subway told the truth, and that their tuna really is tuna?
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Subway's tuna claims have recently amended their complaint.
A Subway spokesperson tells People that the plaintiffs "abandoned their original claim that Subway's tuna product contains no tuna," amending it to assert that "[their] tuna is not 100% tuna and that it is not sustainably caught skipjack and yellowfin tuna."
Although Subway is tasty, that doesn't mean their food is always fresh. Somehow, I can't help but look at all this news and be completely unsurprised — there does seem to be something fishy about their fish.
Even if it is just heavily processed (which almost seems worse than being fake tuna).
h/t: People, Business Insider.
