Is the Food at Subway Healthy and Good for Weight Loss? A Review.

January 14th, 2010 posted by admin
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There are so many food choices available on the market nowadays that it can be excruciatingly painful trying to ascertain what is “healthy” and what is “garbage”. There are low-fat, low-joule, high protein, sugar-free, lite, fat-free and plethora of other marketing terms used to communicate that a particular product is healthy.

So, I have decided to use Subway as a case study in this blog post. Subway’s catch phrase is “Eat Fresh” and a few years ago they began marketing within Australia quite heavily as a fast food chain that was highly appropriate for people seeking to lose weight. Do you remember Jared? Jared Fogle was somewhat of the “Subway mascot”, who lost a phenomenal amount of weight, as shown in Subway’s advertising campaign.

But the question at hand here is not whether or not Jared lost weight on the Subway diet, rather, whether or not the food at Subway is healthy and if the food at Subway is good for weight loss. In other words, is Subway’s marketing campaign accurate with the message that they seem to be implying?

As with any marketing in the nutritional field, it is not wise to rely on what the marketing campaign purports. Just because something may be low in fat, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily “healthy”. After all, jelly beans are low in fat, but they are high in sugar and have a high glycemic index (or have very fast absorbing carbohydrates). Milk chocolate may have a low glycemic index, yet it is full of sugar and very high in fat. Low-fat butter may be lower in fat than regular butter, but it may still be 40% fat (and not the good fats either). So a good understanding of nutrition is vital when ascertaining whether or not food is actually “healthy” for you.

Coming back to Subway and whether or not it is healthy (or good for weight loss), it really depends on the actual food that you consider. Subway have a variety of foods available, all with completely different nutritional compositions. I have downloaded the nutritional information off the Subway website and am using this as my point of reference in writing this Subway review.

Let’s begin with the Subway cookies. The choc-chip cookie is 215 calories having a total of 10.5g of fat. It’s loaded with 18.2g of sugar. Other cookies from Subway are comparable and it really is a bit of a no-brainer that these cookies should generally not be consumed if you’re looking to follow a healthy approach to nutrition.

The salads, wraps and subs at Subway generally depend on the foods that you choose to add into the salad. The meat and sauces that you choose to add on can have a profound impact on the healthiness of the meal you consume. So rather than considering each item individually, let’s look at some of the fillings instead.

To begin with, all the vegetables are great at Subway! They are all fresh and packed full of nutrients. Plus, most of them are practically neutral in regards to net calorie intake. Go for your life with the veggies!

The ham, roast beef, roast chicken and turkey options are quite good, being minimally processed, relatively low in fat and good protein sources. These are all options on the “6 grams of fat or less”. Placed in a salad, you’re eating a very low calorie and high nutrient density meal. For example, a turkey salad without sauce equates to 107 calories (less than half of a choc chip cookie!). Yes, this is quite a healthy meal.

A low-fat 6-inch sub isn’t too much of a concern, assuming that you choose the correct bread and filling. Subway have just introduced a multi-grain sub, which would be a much better option than most of the breads that have available (being white breads). Multigrain will generally not only have a lower glycemic index, but also be more nutrient dense due to the wholegrains contained within the bread. A “6 grams of fat or less” sub will generally set you back around 200-300 calories. The exception is with the sweet onion chicken teriyaki 6-inch, being 352 calories; not a good option for weight loss. The high calorie content is due to the high sugar content in the sweet onion sauce.

Now, onto the Subway no-no’s for weight loss in this review.

There are a variety of add-ons that can really boost up the calorie content. For example, cheddar cheese adds in 42 calories to a 6-inch (double for a footlong). Bacon adds in 45 calories. Chipotle Southwest sauce adds in a whopping 98 calories from a very high fat content of 10.3g on a 6 inch sub! Thousand island dressing adds in 82 calories on a 6 inch – again, definitely one to avoid. The sauces at Subway can really boost up your calorie intake – so if you’re seeking to lose weight, be aware of the effect that this will have on your dietary program.

This is where it really pays to do your nutritional research. Something that is often conceived as low-fat is actually quite the opposite at Subway. Consider this – a tin of tuna in springwater found in your supermarket is typically around 80 calories. Meanwhile, a 6 inch sub at Subway with tuna contains 393 calories! Total fat content (with no add-ons) is a whopping 16.5g primarily from the tuna!

What may come as a surprise (I know it did for me) are some of the non-low-fat subs and how calorie dense they actually are. You may be shocked (and appalled) at how high in fat (and calories) a footlong meatball marinara with a couple of additives has. Let’s consider the following recipe:

  1. Footlong Meatball Marinara
  2. Cheddar Cheese
  3. Bacon
  4. Ranch Dressing

I chose these because I know someone who likes to order a footlong with this recipe! Let’s consider the calorie content of each of the above ingredients:

  1. 956 calories
  2. 84 calories
  3. 90 calories
  4. 120 calories

Total equates to 1250 calories. To put this into perspective, a Big Mac from McDonalds is 540 calories (according to the American McDonalds website). This footlong sub would be the equivalent of consuming 2.3 Big Macs (in calorie consumption terms)!! Alternatively, 1250 calories is possibly more than a female seeking to lose weight would consume in an entire day! I feel that this is fairly obviously not appropriate for anyone seeking to lose weight, let alone eat in a healthy manner.

So the lesson here is to do your research. Yes, there are certainly very healthy options at Subway, yet there are also very unhealthy options too. The same reigns true for nearly all food outlets and restaurants. It is most important to familiarise yourself with the foods that you consume from a nutritional point of view and to never (ever) rely on the marketing that is fed to you through advertising campaigns.

If you don’t feel confident in analysing the nutritional composition of foods, I highly recommend that you sign up to our free weight loss course where we discuss food in detail and interpreting this information for your own personal use.