Subway

I recently visited a Subway and thought it would be fun to do something on the chain so I went on to the website and did some research, crunched some numbers and was really surprised. Though many of the sandwiches can appear to be low in calories, fats, and sodium, you need to be careful what you add to your sandwiches. This may sound like common knowledge, but let me give you an example of how a sensible meal can easily be turned into almost your entire daily-recommended calorie intake. The Turkey Breast Sandwich says it’s 280 calories for a 6” sub. The Turkey Breast Sandwich includes only non-fat condiments, so cheese mayonnaise and the like are excluded.

Hypothetically let’s say you get the lowest calorie bread (The Italian White Bread), Subway employees are told to put 3 slices of turkey on each 6inch sub, and every 3 slices is 50 calories (although I just visited a Subway yesterday and got this Sandwich and the man grabbed a handful of turkey and slapped it on, probably 8 or 9 slices at least).  So you’re looking at 250x2 so 500 out of the gate for a foot long which is perfectly sensible for a meal (I got 250 because the Italian White is 200calories, and the 3 slices are 50, and Subway says its vegetables do not contain calories, the 280 is probably an average of all the breads and the turkey). The employee asks if you want cheese. All the cheeses are between 40 and 60 calories. Let’s say you go with the Cheddar, this has 60 per two slices. You’ve just added 120 calories to your sandwich along with 10grams of fat and 190mg of sodium. Mayonnaise is next. If you get this topping, at 110 calories per Subway serving you’ve just added 220 calories to your sandwich and 24grams of fat and 160mg of sodium. Olive oil. Subways olive oil is 45 calories per serving so you’ve added another 90 calories to your sandwich and 10grams of fat. Avocado. I personally love avocado and always get it added to my sandwiches and always add it to sandwiches that I make. In this case, the serving size that they add is 100 calories.

I’m not stopping here because let’s be honest, you’ll get a bag of potato chips and a soda, and you might be feeling naughty and take home a cookie. A bag of Classic Lays Potato Chips comes in at 150 calories per bag, Subway says that it’s medium coke contains 200 calories and it’s chocolate chips cookies contain 210 calories. This brings the entire calorie count for just this one meal to 1590 calories! The sandwich alone came in at 1030 calories. And a sandwich that was originally sensible and around 500-600 calories with 7 grams of fat and 910mg of sodium now contains 1420mg of sodium and 51grams of fat!!!! Note* The sodium level will be even higher if you have salt added. Your total sodium intake when adding the cookie, chips, and drink comes out to 1750mg, and the total fat for the meal comes out at 71grams!

Breads:

Honey Oat: has the shortest list of ingredients, no weird chemicals, and doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup. I believe all other Subway breads contain high fructose corn syrup.

Roasted Garlic: If you’re watching your sodium intake stay away from this bread. This bread has almost 2-3 times more sodium than any of the other breads coming it at 1390mg per 6-inch sandwich. With the daily-recommended sodium intake being 2400mg or less, getting a foot long would put you well over, and that’s just in the bread. 

All of their other breads are pretty similar to each other in what they contain. The Cheddar has a higher fat content than the other breads.

Subway just introduced a 9grain bread containing Omega 3 as well.