Subway Bread is "Real Bread"
The Claim
The bread served at popular sandwich chain Subway is not "real bread."
News posted on
Emerging story
On September 30th, a Twitter user stated that “all six of the company’s bread options… were deemed too sugary by the court to qualify as bread.” This tweet was in relation to discussions regarding whether or not Subway’s bread is really bread.
With more than four thousand likes and one thousand re-tweets, Twitter users began to further discuss this claim.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation found that in late September, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that Subway’s bread was not actually bread due to its high sugar content. This court case was specifically related to whether the bread was able to have tax exempt status as a staple food.
However, according to the FDA, bread is a food produced by means of baking yeast leavened dough and may include optional ingredients such as water, shortening, or salt.
Although it fits the legal definition for bread, many people have started incorrectly claiming that Subway bread is cake. While there does not seem to be a firm consensus on what exactly cake is, Subway bread does still fall into the category of bread. There are multiple examples of bread with a higher sugar content: Japanese milk bread, Hungarian Beigli, and of course banana bread.
While Subway’s bread does in fact have a sugar content of 10%, it still fits the legal definition of bread. As such, Misbar finds this claim to be false.
