The Subway tuna sandwich might be missing one key ingredient: tuna.
Journalist Julia Carmel bought 60 inches of tuna sandwiches from Subway in May and sent the contents to a laboratory for analysis.
“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,” according to the laboratory.
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Carmel decided to conduct the test because of a class-action lawsuit filed against Subway in January alleging the restaurant’s sandwich contained “a mixture of various concoctions that do not constitute tuna, yet have been blended together by defendants to imitate the appearance of tuna.”
The New York Times, where Carmel reports, paid the laboratory $500 to conduct a PCR test on the tuna to amplify specific DNA in the sample.
The laboratory explained two possible reasons for its findings.
“One, it’s so heavily processed that whatever we could pull out, we couldn’t make an identification,” a lab spokesman said. “Or, we got some, and there’s just nothing there that’s tuna.”
Cooking the tuna can corrupt the fish’s DNA, making it difficult to identify.
“The further you get the fish from the bone, the harder it is to recognize what that fish is,” said Peter Horn, head of Pew Charitable Trusts’ End Illegal Fishing Project.
“This report supports and reflects the position that Subway has taken in relation to a meritless lawsuit filed in California and with respect to DNA testing as a means to identify cooked proteins,” a Subway spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “DNA testing is simply not a reliable way to identify denatured proteins, like Subway’s tuna, which was cooked before it was tested.”
“The testing that the New York Times report references does not show that there is not tuna in Subway’s tuna. All it says is that the testing could not confirm tuna, which is what one would expect from a DNA test of denatured proteins.”
The plaintiffs in the January lawsuit dropped their original claim that there was no tuna in the sandwich, according to the spokesperson. Instead, they changed the complaint to say it was not 100% sustainably caught skipjack and yellowfin tuna, an allegation the restaurant also denied.
In February, Inside Edition conducted a similar examination, asking a laboratory to test three samples it purchased from Subway for the presence of tuna.
“We confirmed that tuna was definitely in all three samples we received,” said LeeAnn Applewhite, CEO of Applied Food Technologies, which conducted the test.
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“The fact is Subway restaurants serve 100% wild-caught, cooked tuna, which is mixed with mayonnaise and used in freshly made sandwiches, wraps, and salads that are served to and enjoyed by our guests,” the subway spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.
