For years, I have been preaching my hatred for Subway resturaunts. Everyone is suprised by this because Subway seems to offer such healthy, delicious meal options and they helped Jared lose 758 pounds. I always had random reasons in my head, but I never stopped to think exactly why I hated subway. I then decided to compile a list and share it with my readers. If you enjoy subway and large pairs of pants that don’t fit anymore, this post is not for you. Well, maybe somehow I could change your mind but I doubt it. Anyways, read on.
- Jared.
I hate Jared. Unless you’ve been staring into an empty milkshake cup for the past five years, you’ve been irritated by Jared Fogle, the incredibly annoying Subway poster child who revolutionized the glory of instant celebrity. All he did was plump up like a Ball Park frank for 20 years by stuffing himself with Big Macs and cream-cheese stuffed French toast, and then un-fattening his Thanksgiving turkey figure by eating Subway sandwiches for every single meal. But should this not be seen as a success story? An obese man who was destined for quadruple bypass surgery by the age of 45 losing the weight and becoming a healthy 170 pounder who can show his fat jeans on national TV? No.
Why do I hate Jared? The answer is simple. More than half of Americans are overweight, and those who are find it unbelievably frustrating that a completely average guy has become an idolized American hero for losing weight. Was this hard for Jared to do? Of course not. Before he stopped carrying around 893 pounds of fat on his body, he simply stopped being a complete idiot and quit consuming massive amounts of fat-fried ground beef. He also had the bright idea of getting his ass out of the seat of the bus he took to McDonald’s every day and walked to a Subway, which wasn’t hard considering that America’s Subway stores are popping up like Starbucks in Los Angeles.
One day when Jared was working up a sweat pouring chocolate milk over his fifth bowl of Count Chocula, he decided to risk a heart attack and burn 800 calories by exerting the effort to turn the milk carton around and read the food pyramid the back. He made an incredible discovery: he hadn’t been obeying the food pyramid! His eating habits were somewhat different!
Bottom line, this guy is now a celebrity because he decided to do what millions of Americans do, which is eat a normal and healthy diet. He is a spokesperson for the company because he makes it look as though it is EASY to lose 837 pounds just eating at Subway everyday. If you can stand the taste of the subs every day, then I guess you deserve to lose that much weight. Just for the record, that last sentence was NOT intended to give Jared any credit.
- The Sandwiches Taste Terrible
With 23,983 units and growing, Subway markets themselves as a healthier alternative to other fast food places. Take for instance their 6 grams of fat or less promotion, this encompasses most of Subway’s menu. Their mission to make their sandwiches under certain grams of fat, however, comes at the expense of taste quality, specifically the sandwiches with deli meat. The deli meats are sliced way too thin and therefore are unable to satisfy people with an appetite such as myself. Don’t believe me? Next time you get a Subway sub, dissect it, hold one piece of lunch meat up to the light and examine how much light comes through. You will be amazed, and come to understand how the consumers are being skimmed. Also, why does every type of meat they serve taste exactly the same?
The same case can be made for their bread, which is way too soft for a hoagie. The fluff of the roll can sometimes make the contents of the sandwich disappear. Subways have made steps to correct their roll quality by offering a variety of spicy breads, but that is kind of like pouring a whole bunch of black pepper into a bland tasting soup. Plus, their lame excuse for a toasted sub is putting your bread into some kind of giant oven which only makes the bread slightly crunchy. This is not a toasted sub. Half the sub is crunchy and the other half is still soft and slightly warm.
Also, it is comedic to me the way that they call the people who work at their establishments “sandwich artists”. Really? So you can put slices of meat on a piece of bread, sprinkle cheese and vegetables on top of that, squeeze a bottle of dressing, and then cut the whole thing down the middle? Damn, that’s a lot of work. Maybe you should be paying them more than $7.40 an hour. You might lose them to an actual sandwich shop. Oh wait, you drove all of them out of business.
- They Are The Only Option
If you’ve ever had a sandwich from a locally owned shop, you know exactly how delicious a sandwich can be. What Subway has done is open up a store or four in every single United States City, putting pressure on these shops to lower their prices while their ingredients suffer. Mom and Pop shops just can’t compete with the prices and the Subway name, so they are forced to close down. Where you were previously able to purchase delicious home made style sandwiches, you are now forced to eat a Subway sandwich.
- $5 Footlongs
I thought about it for awhile and then I’ve come to realize the genius of Subway marketing and what a big con it is. The $5 footlong will basically get you the same amount of meat as a 6 inch, except you get to spread it out over a foot long piece of bread. Watch your local “sandwich artist” next time you order a $5 dollar foot long and see how much of everything you get. Actually, ask them for double meat and see what they say.
- Profiting on America’s Health
I will admit, the whole “healthy” thing is pure genius. Basically Subway gets to cut back on more expensive food ingredients (meats) and substitute with cheaper ingredients (vegetables) and charge customers the same for a “healthier” product. But you have to wonder, how fresh are those vegetables and meats that are sitting on an open counter. Have those tomatoes been kept at an acceptable temperature, or have they been sitting out at room tempterature for the last 6 hours?
What about the dressings? You can’t tell me you order a Subway sandwich with no dressing. That just wouldn’t taste good! Why? Here’s why…
Chipolte South West Dressing – 1 tbs – 150 calories, 10 grams of fat
Regular Mayo – 1 tbs – 160 calories, 14 grams of fat
Ranch – 1 tbs – 100 calories, 12 grams of fat
Greek Vinaigrette – 1 ounce – 200 calories, 22 grams of fat
Fat Free Italian – 1 ounce – 35 calories, 0 grams of fat, 720 mg of sodium
Keep in mind those aren’t added in to their calorie and fat content that they print on their napkins and the amount you get on your sandwich is a lot more than a tablespoon or an ounce.Oh, and how about that knife that they use? How many subs do you think get cut a day with that same knife? The tuna sub before you, the meatball sub before that.. How much crap do you think is on that knife?
That’s all I’ve got. I’m sure there are more things that I hate about Subway, but that’s all I have for you. I hope what i’ve said has moved you, and you are more motivated to find an alternate choice rather than Subway.
Article by John Moors
I was blessed with a remarkable metabolism that has allowed me to overcome obesity and eat everything in sight.
John has written 363 other articles.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I certainly don’t blame you for hating Subway, but I thought I’d like to share with you some information:
1. $5 footlongs are not supposed to be skimping on the meat. If you find that your Subways locally are screwing you out of the proper footlong portion because the sub is $5, this is because the local or perhaps even district management feels that the $5 footlong promotion is hurting their food cost and has begun cheating their customers. I know for a fact that Subways are not supposed to be doing this. If you were able to view the other side of the counter, most Subways are required to keep in plain view for the employees meat formulae. For every sandwich, regardless of price, the formula of meat for a footlong is exactly double what should be placed on a six inch.
2. The knives used to cut subs are not to be reused until they have been washed and sanitized after cutting just one sandwich. Each subway should be keeping a bin of knives on their line so each sub can have a different knife used on it.
That said, here are some things I dislike about Subway:
1. They don’t care.
Frequently, regional inspectors are sent by shops to look around the place and make sure that everything is being done by the book. Trouble areas are marked and the franchise is warned to fix it or face fines. However, this doesn’t mean anything because the inspectors always announce what stores they will be visiting at least 24 hours in advance, giving franchise owners plenty of time to cover up any shady goings on (such as cheating people out of rightly deserved meat on cheaper subs).
2. Chicken
In my region at least, every time they introduce some kind of new sub it’s always another kind of awful chicken. Bourbon, mesquite, buffalo, tuscan, whatever the hell. And every time it’s always just some new sauce of spice to cover up the fact that subway’s chicken is rubbery in texture and completely without flavor. This brings me to my third point.
3. Food quality
If a Subway is run ideally, perfectly by-the-book, the food is still going to be missing something: flavor. All the flavor you get from your food is in the sauces- the meats are thin and flavorless, all the chicken tastes like it was injected with a healthy dose of water to plump it up…. some of the veggies are alright, if you get some green peppers and grill them up and put them on your own sub it helps, but then by that point you might as well make your own sandwich.
4. Mixed messages
I understand that you’re trying to promote healthy eating choices with your bland, bland subs Subway… it’s just that you also outline in upselling training materials that staff members should be encouraged to ask each customer if they want to add bacon or double meat or extra cheese to their sub. So Subway wants you to choose a healthy sandwich, low in fat. They also want you to add bacon and double your meat and put so much of that plastic, flavorless provolone on it that it almost tastes like something! What the hell is wrong with them? The same goes with their drink choices- mostly soda. Sure, they have milk but that’s mostly targeted at the kids, same goes for the little fruit punches. On the fountain they have soda, soda, and more soda. The Subway I know doesn’t even carry coke zero, diet coke is the best you can do. But I’m not counting calories alone, I mainly contend that maybe we could do with more choices that don’t involve HFCS. How about some orange juice or grape juice? That would be nice.
Subway is really just a mess these days. They underpay their staff (I know a manager who barely makes above minimum wage, another who had in their contract certain vacation pay plans outlined that were ignored, etc.) which encourages the staff to care less about friendly service or a quality product. Of course, the product quality cannot be blamed on the staff of a store alone, as the subway food is just bland and really lacking any kind of soul or uniqueness. It reminds me of how Hardee’s used to be- they tried to do everything, and stretched themselves so far that while they offered a lot, they weren’t really good at any of it.
Hey Subway, for all of your apples and sodas and breads and seasonings and chicken and double meat and mixed messages and all the little things you try to do in your stores, I can think of one product you have that really makes me think “hey, this is decent!”
The cookies are okay, but I’d still rather get a slightly more expensive cookie that will be better.
OK first and for most,Most of what you say is purely opinion. How often have you been to Subway? Maybe you had one or two bad experiences and now have ruled us out. Or you just don’t like it. Have you ever worked at a Subway? Did you ask a employee how Subway runs,or if they didn’t like their compensation? If you did ask a employee, were they an adult or a teenager? I personally know how Subway is ran I actually work there. My boss takes excellent care of the employees. If you are an employee who puts in time,effort and has great work ethics you will get increased wages.
First the Five Dollar footlongs are the Cold Cut Trio this is turkey based,salami,ham and bologna 4 pieces of each,BLT 8 slices of bacon and any veggies you would like,ham 8 slices,roasted chicken 2 chicken breasts,meatball 8 meatballs and last but not least veggie what ever veggies you would like. These foot longs get four slices of cheese of your choice, three swipes of sauce of your choice. We are told to put a certain amount of meat and veggies for a reason so the sub will close with out turning in to a over flowing mess. If you would like more meat it costs more but if you would like extra veggies its free all you have to do is ask. Or veggies are always fresh if they go bad we don’t serve them we toss it. Another reason for the amount of meat placed on the sub is for it to be healthy,too much meat is unhealthy. If you eat too much meat you can develop cholesteroleremia which eventually will cause high blood pressure.High levels of protein in the diet causes that the uric acid level in blood increases and may cause liver and kidney damage.In all cases eating a lot of meat also conducts to obesity. Also we do not have even one spicy bread we have Italian,Hearty Italian(which is cornmeal on top)9 Grain Wheat,9 Grain Honey Oat,Italian Herbs and Cheese(which is Parmesan Cheese bread with cheddar cheese sprinkled on top.)Our featured sub at the moment is Buffalo Chicken, which is a personal favorite of mine, I personally don’t agree with the statement “the chicken tastes rubbery.” I have always loved Subway even before I was employed with this company.
I would also like to add we clean our knifes about 10 times or more through out the day and if someone were to come in who was a vegetarian we definitely would make extra caution to clean a knife for that one sub. Do we clean the knifes after every single sub, no its too busy sometimes to do that. Most restaurants don’t have time to clean the silverware they are preparing food with, after every single sub or food item being sliced, unless it was raw meat but Subway dose not serve anything that is raw.
Last but not least we do get Inspected every month. Which are unannounced. The inspector makes sure we are following Subway guidelines. Which includes food tempter(also we do this our self about 4 to five times a day we keep record of it)customer service,dress code,store cleanliness,promotions and much much more.
So before you spout off your opinions check your research to maintain accuracy in your “RANTS” you have written.
This a blog. Last I checked blogs were a forum for posting your opinions….
“I would also like to add we clean our knifes about 10 times or more through out the day and if someone were to come in who was a vegetarian we definitely would make extra caution to clean a knife for that one sub. Do we clean the knifes after every single sub, no its too busy sometimes to do that. Most restaurants don’t have time to clean the silverware they are preparing food with, after every single sub or food item being sliced, unless it was raw meat but Subway dose not serve anything that is raw. ”
Bullshit, my wife stopped going to subway because every single one tries to cut her sub with a mayo laden knife.
It only takes 2 seconds to wipe off a knife between subs. That’s just trying to justify laziness. When I worked at a restaurant we didn’t use dirty knives or give customers dirty silverware because we were “too busy” to wash it.
Son you got a lot to learn for what a good sandwich is. Subway is simply cookie cutter, bad quality BS. Coming from somebody in New York and Jersey area. and Athens Greece
I worked n a Subway, and can agree with everything in this article, I pretty much sneaked out on my breaks to go across the street to a deli and get a real sandwich. and close to the end when I realized I wasn’t being paid enough to really care, started pointing any potential customers coming in to said deli across the street
SUBWAY SUCKS!