I get the Club Royale at Jasons. smoked turkey breast and ham, bacon, Swiss, cheddar.
Same mix of meat but Jasons piles it on. Jasons has good chicken salad too.
I eat less hamburgers now. They just don’t appeal to me anymore.
I’ve never had an issue with Jimmy John’s. It helps that my typical sandwich, the Vito, doesn’t have mayo on it to begin with, but when I get the Turkey Tom, I’ll ask for easy on the mayo, or just no mayo and put some oil & vinegar on it.
I do consider Subway healthier than typical fast food. I get more and a better variety of vegetables and can control what all goes on the sandwich. I’ve been on a bit of a Subway kick the last maybe 2 years, getting a sandwich perhaps every 2 weeks. Probably 85% of my orders are either meatball or tuna, lettuce, tomato, onion, green pepper, giardiniera, a quick couple passes of vinegar & wrap it up. I never get chips or a drink. The other 15% are the veggie (to which I’ll add cheese) and cold cut combo when I’m craving bologna. The bread sucks but I usually get 2 meals from a footlong.
My only experience of Jimmy John’s came at work, during an “employee appreciation day.” Seventeen linear feet of greasy mayo laden vaguely pinkish meat mess sliding around in a slop of yellowy green shredded iceberg lettuce, looked like the morning after the ship docked at the Reverse Mermaid Brothel. I can’t for the life of me see why I should set foot inside to give them another shot at me. It even smelled toxic. I did not feel appreciated, not one bit!
It is too simplistic to say Subway is healthy because there is a lot of choice available. In general, a standard 6” sub or burger is not that bad, even with cheese. It can be made much worse by adding the supersize fries and sugared soda. Even this is not as bad as a 2000 calorie “Bloomin’ Onion” or other large portion, calorie laden restaurant items.
Subway is adequate quality. Good sub places offer provolone and better cheese, and better quality meat and filliings. You can get spinach and pack in enough vegetables to get a couple servings. You can avoid heavier sauces and get a diet drink. It was better when you could substitute fruit for chips, but that’s still better than those bland-sweet cookies. Subway tuna is fine, and a healthier choice than many. Never liked their soup much, but it’s probably healthier than chips and cookies. It could have more fibre and less sodium but so could lots of processed food.
There is the question of opportunity cost - what would you eat instead? You could do worse. The fibrous wrap with tuna, cheese and vegetables ain’t bad. A 12” meatball is better as an occasional indulgence. The bread is soft and adequate quality. It’s not like bakery bread where you would want to eat it on its own.
Haha. I used to work at Jimmy John’s about 25 years ago (as a driver, but I also made sandwiches in the downtime), and I was always reserved in my usage of mayo. Back then, Jimmy John’s beat the pants out of Subway – for my tastes. I fucking hated Subway. Just the smell would make me want to wrech. But something happened in the last five years or so, and they seem to have gotten a lot better, or my tastes have shifted wildly. That Subway scent seems to have dissipated, and the bread has gotten better. (Their Herb & Cheese one is particularly good, and I usually hate flavored breads.) So now, it’s a toss-up between those two for me, and I more often find myself at Subways since they’re ubiquitous where I live, while Jimmy John’s requires me to drive a couple miles for the nearest one. But neither are Jersey Mike’s (which is several miles and about a half hour to the nearest one for me.)
As to the OP, I never really thought of them as healthy, but a 6-inch Spicy Italian with lettuce, tomato, onions, giardiniera, oil, vinegar, salt & pepper, oregano, is more vegetables than I typically get for lunch (sometimes I’ll add cukes and peppers if I really want it dragged through the garden). It’s satisfying enough and I don’t feel bogged down by it.
I think it can be healthy, if you’re careful about what you get and how much. I mean, a 6" turkey sandwich without cheese and with lots of vegetables is pretty decent. Really so are any of their single-meat sandwiches.
But if you get a footlong BMT with cheese, mayo and some vegetables, it’s considerably less healthy.
Bit of a hijack. Did anyone buy a can of tuna from the local grocery store and put it through the same testing?
For Subway, A Ruling Not So Sweet. Irish Court Says Its Bread Isn’t Bread
In Subway’s recipe, sugar makes up 10% of the weight of the flour, according to the judgment. That’s five times what the law deems acceptable.
In a nutshell, it has so much sugar it’s effectively cake.
That’s interesting. Looking at Subway’s ingredients label for their white bread (PDF here), sugar is listed after yeast, and yeast is typically no more than 2% by weight of the flour, and more usually around 1%. And, remember, those are baker’s percentages, so even less by weight of all the ingredients. Assuming around a 60% hydration dough, you’d have 100g flour, 60g water, and about 2g yeast – making sugar under 1.25% of the weight of all the ingredients.) If you look at a truly sweet bread like Wonder bread, the sugar is listed between the water and the yeast.
So something is off. Either the bread has changed since that article was written and the study was made; Subway is using a hell of a lot more yeast than is sane; Subway is lying; the analysis in the study is wrong; or I’m missing something else.
ETA: Looking at their nutritional info, I see 2g of sugar for a 6-inch, 160 g serving, of their White Bread, cough, “artisanal Italian bread.” Something’s not squaring with that article, and those numbers support my math above. Subway bread, to my palette, is nowhere near as sugary as something like Wonder Bread or anything I would criticize as being “cakey.”
I’ve eaten cake.
I’ve eaten Subway bread.
Yeah, no. There’s no way in hell there’s that much sugar. I mean, have you eaten them both?
I have. And I agree. But I also tend to trust that a court of law won’t be just pulling numbers out of their sphincters.
Maybe they were using a different recipe in Ireland for some reason?
I’ve read *threads from European tourists that commented on things they found odd in the US.
The sweetness of our bread was mentioned several times. Its all about what you grew up eating.
US food has hidden sugar in a lot of food.
**Boredpanda
I am trying to eliminate sugar and eat healthier.
True, but compare Subway with Wonder bread, according to each of their nutritional charts. Subway has 2g of sugar per 160g serving, or 1.25%. Wonder bread has 5g sugar per 57g gram serving, or almost 10%. One is not like the other here. (Actual percentages may vary as 2g and 5g is rounded.) The latter is most definitely sweet, though most American palettes probably don’t notice it because they’re used to it. The former has almost an order of magnitude less sugar.
Yes, in general, USAmerican food is on average significantly sweeter than in many/most/perhaps all European countries (other cultures like sweet quite a bit, too). I know it took me awhile to adjust my tastes when I moved back to the States after five years abroad, and I still find a lot of our stuff too sweet for my tastes.
Have you tried their German Chocolate Cake Sub? 
I have a couple Jersey Mike’s along my commute, more than Subway. Jimmy John’s is further out of my way or close after lunch.One of the Jersey Mike’s was just recently changed from a Quiznos (which I got a taste for).
Of the places that are around, I prefer Jimmy John’s, something doesn’t quite work with Jersey Mike’s- maybe the ton of oregano they put on- and Subway is just kinda meh. I consider them healthier than other fast food places like McDonalds or Taco Bell, but that’s about all.
For me, Jersey Mikes is a full tier above the other two, but my favorite sub is an Italian (and Jersey Mikes has plenty variations to choose from) with plenty of oregano and hot peppers, so JM’s is a fit for me. Plus their cold cuts are much better quality. I never noticed the oregano issue, but you can always ask them to nix it or go easy.
Dammit, now I’m hungry.
I think the association of Subway with “healthy” is a product of their clever, but insidious, marketing campaign, “Eat fresh,” because most people connect “fresh” with “healthy.” But, obviously, they are not synonymous.
A nice, fresh cheesecake may be delicious, but it’s not exactly health food. Likewise a footlong sub with lots of luncheon meats and mayo.
I always liked the Gaffigan sketch where he talks about how they put three slices of meat on the sub like they’re unrolling them from a wad of hundreds. There you go! Buy yourself something nice!
The best delis make their own meat and serve it in somewhat ludicrous proportions. Subway is an adequate place. They are everywhere!
Taco Bell is not my favourite, but it is surprising how few calories are in a simple beef taco.
Best pastrami in the world is Langer’s. They make their own rye bread, and it’s awesome, too. Dang. Need to go there SOON.