Posted on 04/08/2006 7:29:41 AM PDT by Cvengr
What's the largest fast junk food chain in the country?
Wrong.
It's not McDonald's.
It's Subway.
Subway overtook McDonald's last year in the United States and now has 15,874 locations in the U.S. compared to 11,533 for McDonald's.
Worldwide, Subway has 21,528 restaurants in 75 countries.
McDonald's has more than 30,000 restaurants in 119 countries.
Subway founder Fred DeLuca says he wants 30,000 outlets worldwide by 2010.
Of course, Subway would not want you to think that it is not a fast junk food chain.
In fact, the privately held firm has overtaken McDonald's by riding a wave of publicity featuring Jared Fogle, who says he lost 245 pounds on the following diet coffee for breakfast, Subway sandwich for lunch, and Subway sandwich for dinner.
Soon, the word was out you could lose weight eating Subway sandwiches.
And tomorrow, on the National Mall, Subway founder and CEO DeLuca will join with Fogle, the American Heart Association, members of Congress (including the corporate liberal Rose DeLauro, D-Connecticut, whose district contains Subway's corporate headquarters), and various "nutritional experts" to "galvanize support for fighting childhood obesity."
We went and visited our local Subway and found that in fact, there was health and diet information displayed, including a nutritional and dietary guide with the American Heart Association's stamp of approval.
But as at most fast junk food outlets, Coke machines, the rows of bags of chips, and the rubbery chicken and unappetizing beef were screaming unhealthy, stay away.
You could order a salad, or a vegetarian sandwich. The chain markets seven subs with six grams of fat or less.
But for the most part, the staple of this franchise is processed meats and cheeses, soft drinks and chips.
Subway sandwiches include such classics as Steak and Cheese, Subway Melt (a first class blend of turkey breast, ham, crispy bacon, and melted cheese) Italian BMT (pepperoni, genoa salami, and ham) and the Cold Cut Trio (turkey based ham, salami, and bologna) not your typical heart healthy sandwiches.
Should members of Congress and the American Heart Association be promoting this multinational junk food company?
Of course they shouldn't.
The American Heart Association has sullied its reputation by getting in bed with whatever corporation comes around with its checkbook open.
According to a report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the American Heart Association has taken big corporate cash from a long list of drug companies, junk food companies, and even from the National Livestock and Meat Board, which gave $189,000 to sponsor a HeartRide cycling series "to help ensure that people don't think that AHA recommends abstaining from meat."
In return for endorsing only Bayer aspirin, AHA gets $500,000 a year from Bayer. Nice deal, if you can cut it.
And how much money has Subway kicked in?
According to the AHA, Subway has given $4 million to the American Heart Association (AHA) since 2002, and will gave an additional $6 million through 2007. That's a total of $10 million.
In exchange, Subway gets to put the AHA "fighting heart disease and stroke" logo on its materials throughout its chain of stores, according to an AHA spokesperson.
In a written statement, the AHA said it will only accept sponsorships from "those restaurants that have a public/market positioning associated with healthy foods or have heart-healthy and non-fried food alternatives on the menu."
"Subway actively promotes low-saturated fat meal options and exercise in their advertising messages," the AHA said in the statement. "Their messaging reinforces that a well-balanced diet and exercise are important tools in maintaining a healthy weight."
We agree with Commercial Alert's Gary Ruskin that it's "not the proper role of the federal government or public health groups to hawk Subway or any other form of fast or junk food."
"This is part of the broader story of the corruption of the American public health movement," Ruskin said. "AHA ought to drop its support for Subway. They have been converted into an auxiliary marketeer for Subway. They are apparently for sale."
"The fast food companies are running in a panic over the obesity epidemic," Ruskin said. "They are striving to do something to make it seem that they are not responsible for it or part of it. This is just one more way that companies like Subway try to hide their tracks and boost their public relation images."
The government and independent public health organizations should be helping the American people fight off the hyperbreeding of fast food outlets cannibalizing the country not promoting it.
In addition to promoting his beloved Subway and making millions a year doing so, DeLuca wants to bring an Indian gambling casino to Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Call it the junk food/junk economy connection.
According to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, DeLuca invested $10 million in the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation's successful effort to gain federal recognition so they could build a casino in Connecticut. Blumenthal is challenging that recognition.
And the House Government Reform Committee is in the middle of an investigation of how the Schaghticoke Tribe and the Eastern Pequots gained such recognition from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Earlier this year, the Hartford Courant reported that a rival band of Indians charged that the federal recognition of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation "was hijacked by outside investors and high-priced lobbyists intent on winning a lucrative gambling franchise for their own benefit."
Whether or not the investors and lobbyists hijacked the process we'll leave to federal investigators.
But what is clear is that Subway and DeLuca have hijacked the American Heart Association, Congresswoman DeLauro, and various federal agencies to promote their own brand of fast junk food.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter, http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press; http://www.corporatepredators.org).
(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
This article is posted at: http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2004/000181.html
Yes it is, so knock yourself out.
Thanks for that post.
I will never use Bayer again.
I love Subway.
Though their cookies aren't exactly heart-healthy.
Quizno's is gross.
But, to each his own.
I will say though, I have noticed Subway quality decreasing over the years. They used to be much better.
The best sub I ever had was at a Washington, DC restaurant last month though. Pot Belly's I think it was called.
That place rocks.
There's a Subway on our university campus (SOU). I've stopped eating there anyway, but now I wonder if they, too, are contributing to liberal causes. I suppose I could simply ask and find out. :^)
(not that being on a university campus isn't in and of itself support for liberalism...)
Not much choice but Subway here in KS.
That said, fast food always tends to be better here, at least in my opinion, than when I get it in other states. It seems to taste just not quite as good everywhere else.
I don't know why though.
You might want to read the rest of the thread.
I ate there in Washington, DC a couple weeks ago.
That is the best sub I have ever had, albeit without much competititon here in rural KS.
PotBelly Sandwhich works is about the closest thing to heaven you can imagine.
nutrion = nutrition
PS Although I don't know why they make those small deli-size rolls on bread that is not white, and not whole wheat, but instead, like an egg-bread roll or something. It would be better if they did whole wheat on those smaller, deli rolls.
But you are right about the decline at Subways. I remember thinking they were OK in the early '80s in Missouri.
I may have been mistaken per corrections of other posters here. I'll be interested in watching the ad again to see if I misread their ad.
Yes, I read through the thread and it sounds like there was no "fight homophobia" after all.
"Subway donates considerable money to liberal causes."
"Former Post:"This article is ostensibly focused on highlighting the 'evils' of cooperation between corporate fast food giants, the government, and the AHA. But, notice how deftly the *propagandist switches gears between bashing Subway for the purported unhealthfulness of much of their menu, to bashing the CEO of Subway for the totally unrelated issue of his personal investment in an Indian casino opportunity."
Clearly the junk food angle in the article was just excuse for author*Russell Mokhiber to "bash" Criminal,or manipulating Corporations, is Editor of Washington DC Crime Reporter, Corporate Predators..
Suggest www.Public Citizen.com re: Obese Act replacing Tobacco as political games continue to exploit the obese citizen for attention just as the movie "The Constant Gardner" focused on problems of pharmaceutical companies focusing on the poor in Africa to sell its wares.
Is this thread about sandwiches or subway trains? LOL, they must mean "po'boys"!
Antone's is alive and somewhat kicking. The family had a fight and split their territories, after they had expanded to every known place of business selling food in the city of Houston. I could've had an Antone's cooler of sandwiches in my house, I'm sure, if I'd called them up!
They may be back to more normal now, I don't know. I never eat them anymore. As they went up from $2 ($3 for a Super Red Wrap!) to $7-8, the meat content went down, down. Of course, it doesn't really matter because it's the RELISH that makes 'em!
I used to practically live on them "back in the day" - my favorite was the least popular one - the Piggy Boy. I can taste it now. It was ground up salami, lots of herbs, onions, garlic, for the spread, then some slices of pepper cheese, then provolone and salad peppers and mayo. I could eat two big ones! I never did, but I *could* have. Yum, yum, yum.
Somewhere along the line while I was away in OK, they started making them with ground ham instead of salami and they were awful. I wish I could duplicate the old Piggy Boys at home, but have never found the right salami to grind that tastes right.
In my 20s, I would buy Antone's Super Red Wrap poor boys and slice them into 8ths or more for hor d'oeuvres when friends came over and those were always the first thing to disappear. Most people loved them. At $8, I'm not enamored anymore. They are in all the grocery stores and elsewhere--might be a tad cheaper in their own storefronts. The atmosphere is pretty much totally gone - not like the Voss store we've talked about before.
I don't eat many sandwiches for a foodie, so can't really critique much. I intensely dislike bread and always remove at least the top one--with Antone's, I had to make sure to scrape the relish off onto the filling, though! I believe I've eaten in a Subway twice. Got a tuna salad once which was unremarkable and don't recall the other. It was just a meeting place with an old friend and the food wasn't important. I haven't ever gone there on purpose.
There was a little hole-in-the-wall deli on Fondren I used to work near that made the best tuna subs I've ever had. That was the first place I saw them squirt the Italian salad dressing on top of the filling, like they do in all of them now, I think. Theirs were just tuna mixed with some mayo to spreadable, some shredded lettuce, then the wonderful dressing, some thin sliced onions and some pepper cheese slices, with a little mustard and mayo on the top bread. Fantastic. Never found any others like those.
The best bread I've had was at Schlotzky's, though the sandwiches themselves didn't impress me. I've never been to a Quizno's. I love muffulettas, especially the olive salad that goes on them and I like pressed sandwiches, paninos, or things on ciabatta bread (tho I haven't tried any of Jack's) as long as I make them at home and usually open-faced.
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