Subway chicken only 50% meat?

baronrenfrew · Post by **baronrenfrew** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:08 am

Ross: you completely missed the point here. The subway "chicken" is 50% meat and 50% soybean and other ingredients (50 different ingredients to make it taste like meat: salt, caramel, onion powder, maltodextrin, cornstarch, etc)
In other words their "ingredient list" is a lie.
Same as the Kraft parmesan cheese that is 15% wood cellulose fiber.
Its not what you are told: its what you are not told about that matters.

I wonder what's in their "meatballs"?

ross · Post by **ross** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:24 am

Baron personally if I see my chicken has soybean in it 1% or 50% I wouldn't order it if I cared if it was all meat or not so not sure what yu mean . I guess to some size does matter not me . Not condemning anyone just wanted to get my opinion in . Personally I'm not a fan of any prepared meat . Luck

Maximus · Post by **Maximus** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:41 am

Allergen listing is not an ingredient listing.

If you ask for the ingredients, which I do, they will pull out a binder and get all flustered because the majority do not have a complete understanding of what they are serving. Is that chicken? Yes. In reality, sure it is chicken, PLUS PLUS PLUS. So you have got to be smarter a say what is added to the chicken.

I can tell you McDonalds HATES to pull the binder out. It takes management to get it. Nothing to see here folks, move along mentality.

Maximus · Post by **Maximus** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:44 am

Speaking of binders for ingredients and country of origin and you got some time? Go to M&M meats. NO ONE knows where the chicken is from. Some will say Canada, other locations will say the US but it is hormone free, others can't find the answer in the binder.
I suspect it is from China. I suspect it isn't hormone or antibotic free. And with Berts recent post on H#N# (I can't keep track of the latest outbreak) I would be wary.

TomK · Post by **TomK** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:56 am

I like Bert's mention of the parmessan cheese...we don't buy pre grated parmessan cheese..only by the block and grate it ourselves...the big problem are our labelling laws and the semantics that are allowed..the parmessan, for example, is indeed 100% grated cheese and that is what it says on the label, but it leads one to think that EVERYTHING in the container is cheese, which of course it is not...the cellulose (aka paper or wood fibre) is in there to keep it from clumping...but you should pay for the weight of the cheese, not the same rate for the wood fibre...it can be as much as 15%...and don't get me started on orange juice..OMG!!!!!! :running-chicken:

baronrenfrew · Post by **baronrenfrew** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 10:03 am

And "chicken" can be 20% water. They can INJECT water with a needle on the processing line. That's why foodies (especially in England) insist on "dry plucked" chicken.

A real ham is many different muscles (I think its nine) and when cooked the muscles are different colours. Meat processing companies separate the muscles, trim the fat, soak it in salt water until all the muscles look the same, then "press cook" it together (with a bone if needed) and then sell it as a ham. If the bone is from a Canadian pig and the meat from China....then its labelled a "Canadian" ham. Mmmmmm good.....not.

Maximus · Post by **Maximus** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 10:20 am

GAG!! I knew I hated ham for a reason. Actually most lunch meat grosses me out.

And I'm with Tom on the cheese. Costco. Blocks. Or we have a cheese factory on the way into Hamilton we will also stop at. I am not one for cheese, so I dont stress over it.

Gross!!!

Every read the ingredients on butter tarts bought in a store? No butter. Soya bean oil and butter flavouring. Ok, I'm done. Lol

Brebis · Post by **Brebis** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 10:29 am

We used to put cellulose into our grated cheese as well but my job was making sure the guys packaging did their math right and added the right amount. For grated fresh cheese the max was 2% if I remember and it got even more complicated when the cellulose mix had natamycin (mould inhibitor) in it as it is controlled and CFIA get on you about keeping it below regulatory limits.
Curiously of you put enough cellulose in a product, you up the fibre so they use it in all sorts of food that have added fibre that don't normally have it. As ingredients go, it's pretty benign and is sourced from grains (wheat and oat brans).
As a processor, you're often damned if you do and damned if you don't since consumers don't like their grated cheese to be clumpy and damp but they don't like the added cellulose or mould either!

JimW · Post by **JimW** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 11:24 am

I agree some of the labeling is misleading and there are lots of things "hiding" in our food products that it is not easy to find out what is in their. But I am with Ross.

We have food choices, the companies are just catering to what the majority of consumers want, relatively cheap, fast food. If people want the convenience of not having to buy, prepare and cook their own food then they will be compromises those people will have to make in food quality.

People need to educate themselves, when I was a kid and we went to Harvey's hamburgers and you bite into your burger and this orange liquid comes out, even as a kid I knew that was not natural if the burger was 100% pure beef. I eat healthy food, I did eat a lot of unhealthy food, I still eat some. I got type 2 diabetes at 43 years old, not because food companies were hiding bad things in fried fast food junk, but because I was stupid and lazy.

I am not a big fan of the fast food restaurants, we do eat at them, but I don't really think they are that terrible, they are just meeting a new that the masses want. They could definitely do a better job and food labeling.

I am a BIG FAN of people taking responsibility and educating themselves, finding information can be hard but if people don't want to educate themselves and make informed decisions then too bad for them.

Many home recipes for hamburger patties (which don't even have ham in them, talk about mislabelling/faulty advertising) call for spices and things like bread crumbs as binders which many people use. But if restaurants use that stuff it then becoming "filler".

Oh well off to get a Egg McMuffin. :)

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Sun Feb 26, 2017 11:46 am

This really isn't about educating yourself or eating whatever you personally feel is good bad or indifferent on your plate.
It's a restaurant or a fast food place advertising and taking money from you for one thing and handing over something else.
If I have ordered and paid for grilled chicken breast, I have a right to expect that I am getting just that.
It may be a crappy factory chicken breast, but still just meat.
Once you stretch that by adding + - 50% of something else, deconstructing the whole mess and re-combine it to look more or less like chicken breast, it's downright fraud.