Subway Chicken Contains Less Than 55% Chicken DNA

It shouldn't come as a surprise to many that the amount of chicken in many fast food menu items isn't anywhere close to 100 percent.

Canada's CBC Marketplace oversaw a DNA analysis of various chicken items sold at different fast food restaurants. The analysis was conducted at Trent University's Wildfire Forensic DNA Laboratory and all but one chicken item achieved a score that was "very close" to 100 percent chicken.

It is important to note that a piece of chicken from the grocery store without any seasoning or marinade would score a 100 percent. But once seasoning, marinating or processing of the chicken is factored in, the chicken obviously wouldn't score 100 percent.

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Study Results

Here are the findings:

• A&W, a Canadian fast food chain, achieved the highest score of 89.4 percent for its Chicken Grill Deluxe sandwich.
• Wendys Co WEN's Grilled Chicken Sandwich scored 88.5 percent.
• Restaurant Brands International Inc QSR's Tim Hortons unit achieved an 86.5 percent score with its Chipotle Chicken Grilled Wrap.
• McDonald's Corporation MCD's Country Chicken scored 84.9 percent.

Outlier: Subway

Subway's oven roasted chicken scored just 53.6 percent, which prompted the researchers to double check their work with a new analysis. But the results were verified to be accurate and the remaining 42.8 percent of the product was composed of soy.

For its part, Subway told CBC in a statement that its recipe calls for its chicken to contain 1 percent or less of soy protein; it is looking into the matter to investigate the discrepancy.