- Beef, chicken, and fish products at fast-food restaurants aren’t always made from 100 percent meat.
- They can contain additional additives, such as a textured vegetable protein or a soy product, that make them cheaper to produce.
- Health experts say these types of processed meats are less healthy than unprocessed meats.
- If you’re concerned about the quality of the meat a fast-food establishment is serving, health experts suggest checking the ingredients list on the menu, as it may offer unprocessed options as well as plant-based alternatives.
Recently, The New York Times took a deep dive to get to the bottom of one of the great questions of our time:
Is the fish product included in restaurant chain Subway’s popular sandwiches actually tuna or… something else?
The investigative report by journalist Julie Carmel was in response to a class-action lawsuit in California filed back in January against the fast-food giant. The lawsuit makes the claim that the brand’s tuna fish sandwiches “are completely bereft of tuna as an ingredient.”
The lawsuit spread far and wide, even eliciting some sympathy from pop star Jessica Simpson — herself once famously questioning the provenance of Chicken of the Sea (is it chicken or tuna, after all?) — on Twitter.
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The headlines generated around the tuna confusion played into the long-standing debate of what exactly is in the meat we consume at fast-food restaurants.
How healthy are the highly processed items you might order at McDonald’s or Subway? Are they everything they claim to be as advertised?
Source: healthline