Fast food generally has a bad reputation, and Trent University didn’t help one fast food chain’s credibility. In early 2017, a researcher at the college, based in Ontario, decided to run a test on Subway’s chicken to see if it was, in fact, chicken. The results showed that Subway’s chicken strips were made up of only 43% chicken, while their oven-roasted chicken had 54% chicken DNA. The rest of the ingredients were simply filler ingredients. While no one expected fast food chicken to be 100% chicken, no one expected the results to be as low as they were.
Consistent testing showed a pattern—that much of the DNA of the “chicken” was soy protein. Other fast food restaurants, like McDonald’s and Tim Horton’s, were found to have between 85% and 90% of chicken DNA in their chicken products. Panel testing done amongst consumers supported the results, with all taste testers ranking Subway’s chicken amongst their least favorite. They noted that the sample from Subway tasted more artificial than the chicken from other fast food chains. Subway has maintained that their chicken is 100% white meat chicken, with limited artificial ingredients. The test results beg to differ.