Subway -- A Partially Hydrogenated Oils Project

The response to my email that I received from Subway was the first time I actually felt like I was dealing with a real person (I won't use her name here since she seemed like a nice lady).  Here's her original response...

Monday, October 11, 2010 

Dear Jason:

Thank you for your interest in Subway nutritional information.   We do not use partially-hydrogenated oil in our products.  All of our standard menu items are free of artificial trans fat.  Some of our cheeses and meat contain naturally occurring trans fat.

On our website www.subway.com you will be able to find our nationally offered products broken down by Nutrition/Ingredient information. For countries other than the USA visit www.subway.ca and select the country.

All information is updated regularly, unlike printed material they may be out dated.

A Printer Friendly Version can be found by highlighting the maroon Menu/Nutrition tab at the top of the main page.  Select Nutritional Information on the right of your screen select Nutrition Data Tables

The local items may be found under the heading 6 Limited Time Offer/Regional Subs. For those local items not listed you will need to ask at your local Subway. 

Again, thank you for choosing Subway.

Sincerely, The Lady from subway who responded to me

I did my homework before sending this email out.  If a site didn't list partially hydrogenated oils in their ingredient list I didn't send them an email.  I double checked my research and this is what I found:

FAT FREE ITALIAN DRESSING Water, vinegar, sugar, corn syrup, salt, Parmesan and Romano made from cow’s milk cheese (part-skim milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes), Contains less than 2% of garlic onion juice, molasses, phosphoric acid, xanthan gum, whey, with potassium sorbate and calcium disodium EDTA as preservatives, dried bell peppers, propylene glycol alginate, yeast extract, spice, buttermilk, lemon juice concentrate, dried garlic, sodium phosphate, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, caramel color, enzymes, vitamin E acetate, oleoresin paprika. Contains milk.

While those ingredients certainly sound appetizing, this goes against the lady's email, and never one to back down from the anonymity of an Internet argument, I sent this email in return:

Is this the correct link?  http://www.subway.com/subwayroot/menunutrition/nutrition/frmusingredients.aspx

It shows the oils used in the salad dressing.  What is meant by "standard menu?  Is it possible I could walk into a local Subway and be served partially hydrogenated oils if I unknowingly order outside of the standard menu?

To be honest, I didn't expect any response to this.  When I first became aware of partially hydrogenated oils in around 2004 I did recall that their breads were baked with it.  However, they did make positive strides to reduce these oils and released a Press Release to declare they are now trans fat free.  But why the the trans fat in their "fat free" dressing?  I got this very honest response:

Okay, it looks like there is an older ingredient statement up there that needs to be updated.  The Fat Free Italian dressing is completely free of total fat, saturated fat and trans fat.  Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention. 

The site hasn't changed yet, but at least she admitted it was a mistake.  I plan to go into a Subway restaurant and ask for an updated list of ingredients, but it's likely just as out of date, if that is the truth at all.  There's little point in discussing the issues with the 16-year-old sandwich artists on duty.