Test results reportedly came back that Subway’s beloved tuna sandwich was missing one of its key ingredients – the tuna.
After a class-action lawsuit was filed against Subway in January claiming that its tuna was fake, The New York Times launched its own investigation to find out whether the allegations were true or false.
The Times had 60 inches of Subway’s tuna sandwich from three different restaurants in Los Angeles tested in a lab.
The tuna was frozen then examined, and the Times says its tests determined “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.”
“One, it’s so heavily processed that whatever we could pull out, we couldn’t make an identification,” a lab spokesperson said. “Or we got some and there’s just nothing there that’s tuna.”
Subway wrote an email to the newspaper denying the accusations, saying there are explanations for what happened.
“There simply is no truth to the allegations in the complaint that was filed in California,” a Subway spokeswoman wrote in the email. “Subway delivers 100 percent cooked tuna to its restaurants.”
In a statement posted online, Subway said its restaurants serve 100 percent wild-caught tuna and that it’s one of their most popular products.
“A recent New York Times report indicates that DNA testing is an unreliable methodology for identifying processed tuna,” the press release reads. “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. DNA testing is simply not a reliable way to identify denatured proteins, like Subway’s tuna, which was cooked before it was tested.”
“Unfortunately, various media outlets have confused the inability of DNA testing to confirm a specific protein with a determination that the protein is not present,” it continues. “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.”
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