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No bread in Subway sandwiches, rules court in Ireland

zooterkin

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zooterkin
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According to a court ruling in Ireland, the stuff they wrap the filling with in Subway does not count as bread.

The Irish Supreme court has ruled that the bread served at Subway – a US sandwich food chain with branches in more than 100 countries – cannot be defined as bread.

Under Ireland’s Value-Added Tax Act of 1972 it cannot even be defined as a staple food, according to the Irish Independent, because it contains too much sugar.
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:eusa_shhh: All foods in the USA are carefully monitored and approved by the FDA, run by experts who are fresh from the industries they regulate, just like all other regulators. What could go wrong?
 
"The bread’s sugar content – five times the qualifying limit under the act – means that it falls outside of the legal definition of a staple food."

And this sounds tasty:

"The ruling is not the first slice of controversy for the brand. In 2014, Subway decided to start removing the flour whitening agent azodicarbonamide from its baked goods after a petition circulated online. The ingredient is commonly used in the manufacture of yoga mats and carpet underlay and has been banned by the European Union and Australia from use in food products."
 
I've been to America twice, and I was constantly unpleasantly surprised by how sweet so much of the supposedly savoury food was. I bought some broccoli & pasta salad in Walmart (desperation- you try being vegetarian in Las Vegas!), and it was as sweet as a dessert. Horrible.
 
As one who has lived for, lo, these many years with a keen and skilled home baker, my first question would be WTAF is that much sugar doing anywhere near bread?

And, regarding the actual court ruling: oh dear, a large trans-national company will have to pay the tax they should have all along. Flow my tears, the crocodile said.
 
Carrot Flower King said:
As one who has lived for, lo, these many years with a keen and skilled home baker, my first question would be WTAF is that much sugar doing anywhere near bread?

And, regarding the actual court ruling: oh dear, a large trans-national company will have to pay the tax they should have all along. Flow my tears, the crocodile said.
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They put sugar in bread because people like sugar. It keeps people coming back for more.

In this case I believe it was the franchisee who was attempting not to pay tax. Not Subway Inc.

I always believed sandwiches were 0 rated anyway.... interesting that they are being classed as hot takeaway food.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
I've been to America twice, and I was constantly unpleasantly surprised by how sweet so much of the supposedly savoury food was. I bought some broccoli & pasta salad in Walmart (desperation- you try being vegetarian in Las Vegas!), and it was as sweet as a dessert. Horrible.
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In college I had a work study job as sort of a guide / English tutor for new international students. We had a partnership with a Korean university so most of the students were Korean.

At that point I hadn't given much thought to the idea of a palate, but watching the new students eat American prepared food for the first few times was enlightening to say the least. Just as enlightening as me being introduced to noodles with hot bean paste, which about killed me seeing up to that point mild salsa would give me a runny nose.
 
RolandRat said:
"The bread’s sugar content – five times the qualifying limit under the act – means that it falls outside of the legal definition of a staple food."

And this sounds tasty:

"The ruling is not the first slice of controversy for the brand. In 2014, Subway decided to start removing the flour whitening agent azodicarbonamide from its baked goods after a petition circulated online. The ingredient is commonly used in the manufacture of yoga mats and carpet underlay and has been banned by the European Union and Australia from use in food products."
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Don't worry, I'm sure that post-Brexit UK bread will have all the sugar you want, plus all those USAian ingredients that make their bread so special; potassium bromate, azodicarbonamide, potassium iodate, butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydroxytoluene.
 
All fast food in the USA must have 5 times the sugar, salt, and fat vs actual food. And must have a storage life of several days.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
I've been to America twice, and I was constantly unpleasantly surprised by how sweet so much of the supposedly savoury food was. I bought some broccoli & pasta salad in Walmart (desperation- you try being vegetarian in Las Vegas!), and it was as sweet as a dessert. Horrible.
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Stay away from the cuisine of northwestern Africa. Baked chicken smothered in apricot sauce with little slices of apricots all over... hot mint tea... shredded chicken & ground almonds in sauce wrapped up in a filo pastry roll so covered in powdered sugar & cinnamon... baklava, small wafers of filo so soaked with honey (maybe boiled-down or filtered honey if there is such a thing?) that it's hard & brittle, and sweeter & more honeyish than the same amount of pure honey would be.
 
Someone should put together a patty made from the non-meat from Taco Bell and the non-bread from Subway for a true nothingburger.
 
This is a little silly. Subway's bread is very obviously bread. It contains the same ingredients, is baked in ovens, and has the form and texture that's unique to bread compared to other foods.
 
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Checkmite said:
This is a little silly. Subway's bread is very obviously bread. It contains the same ingredients, is baked in ovens, and has the form and texture that's unique to bread compared to other foods.
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IMO it's bread in the same way that Kraft slices are cheese.
 
RolandRat said:
"The bread’s sugar content – five times the qualifying limit under the act – means that it falls outside of the legal definition of a staple food."

And this sounds tasty:

"The ruling is not the first slice of controversy for the brand. In 2014, Subway decided to start removing the flour whitening agent azodicarbonamide from its baked goods after a petition circulated online. The ingredient is commonly used in the manufacture of yoga mats and carpet underlay and has been banned by the European Union and Australia from use in food products."
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This is one of the worst sets of possible arguments. Let's break it down.

"The ingredient is commonly used in the manufacture of yoga mats and carpet underlay"

Why is this bad? because it applies equally to water:

"[Water] is commonly used in the manufacture of yoga mats and carpet underlay"

Does that mean we should ban water in foods? No. It's a pure appeal to shock factor, and should have no place in making policy.

The next part is barely better:
"and has been banned by the European Union and Australia from use in food products."

That's great, but why was it banned? Was it to protect their internal competitive products? Was it to lock in the anti-chemical vote? Was it accidentally moved from a list of allowed products to a list of banned ones because of a misplaced comma?

It may have been banned for good reasons. But, if that were the case, then those reasons could be directly stated now, rather than relying on "well, a few other people are doing it". That they didn't articulate the reasons directly leaves the reader to wonder if this is as meaningful as the "Contains substances known to the State of California to cause cancer" on everything that includes even potential microscopic amounts of a chemical that produced a possible cancerous reaction in one test in the 70s.
 
This is as bad as hooking up with a lady and finding out She is trans and that chicken isn't boneless.
 
The Don said:
IMO it's bread in the same way that Kraft slices are cheese.
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No, it's bread the way Italian bread, French bread, and Amish sweet bread are all "bread" even though they have different ratios of ingredients. Pumpernickel recipes often contain molasses in ratios of a hell of a lot more than "2% of the weight of the flour" and not a soul in the world claims that pumpernickel isn't real bread because of it.
 
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GodMark2 said:
This is one of the worst sets of possible arguments. Let's break it down.

"The ingredient is commonly used in the manufacture of yoga mats and carpet underlay"

Why is this bad? because it applies equally to water:

"[Water] is commonly used in the manufacture of yoga mats and carpet underlay"

Does that mean we should ban water in foods? No. It's a pure appeal to shock factor, and should have no place in making policy.

The next part is barely better:
"and has been banned by the European Union and Australia from use in food products."

That's great, but why was it banned? Was it to protect their internal competitive products? Was it to lock in the anti-chemical vote? Was it accidentally moved from a list of allowed products to a list of banned ones because of a misplaced comma?

It may have been banned for good reasons. But, if that were the case, then those reasons could be directly stated now, rather than relying on "well, a few other people are doing it". That they didn't articulate the reasons directly leaves the reader to wonder if this is as meaningful as the "Contains substances known to the State of California to cause cancer" on everything that includes even potential microscopic amounts of a chemical that produced a possible cancerous reaction in one test in the 70s.
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Next you will be defending GMO's something all our European posters know are evil.
 
Heh. Reminds me of how Pringles crisps were classified as cake in the UK for a while. Also reminds me of arguments about whether certain kinds of beer are really beer (because of the German beer purity laws).
 
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GodMark2 said:
This is one of the worst sets of possible arguments. Let's break it down.

"The ingredient is commonly used in the manufacture of yoga mats and carpet underlay"

Why is this bad? because it applies equally to water:

"[Water] is commonly used in the manufacture of yoga mats and carpet underlay"

Does that mean we should ban water in foods? No. It's a pure appeal to shock factor, and should have no place in making policy.

The next part is barely better:
"and has been banned by the European Union and Australia from use in food products."

That's great, but why was it banned? Was it to protect their internal competitive products? Was it to lock in the anti-chemical vote? Was it accidentally moved from a list of allowed products to a list of banned ones because of a misplaced comma?

It may have been banned for good reasons. But, if that were the case, then those reasons could be directly stated now, rather than relying on "well, a few other people are doing it". That they didn't articulate the reasons directly leaves the reader to wonder if this is as meaningful as the "Contains substances known to the State of California to cause cancer" on everything that includes even potential microscopic amounts of a chemical that produced a possible cancerous reaction in one test in the 70s.
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You're not wrong :)
 
GodMark2 said:
This is one of the worst sets of possible arguments. Let's break it down.

"The ingredient is commonly used in the manufacture of yoga mats and carpet underlay"

Why is this bad? because it applies equally to water:

"[Water] is commonly used in the manufacture of yoga mats and carpet underlay"

Does that mean we should ban water in foods? No. It's a pure appeal to shock factor, and should have no place in making policy.

The next part is barely better:
"and has been banned by the European Union and Australia from use in food products."

That's great, but why was it banned? Was it to protect their internal competitive products? Was it to lock in the anti-chemical vote? Was it accidentally moved from a list of allowed products to a list of banned ones because of a misplaced comma?

It may have been banned for good reasons. But, if that were the case, then those reasons could be directly stated now, rather than relying on "well, a few other people are doing it". That they didn't articulate the reasons directly leaves the reader to wonder if this is as meaningful as the "Contains substances known to the State of California to cause cancer" on everything that includes even potential microscopic amounts of a chemical that produced a possible cancerous reaction in one test in the 70s.
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The quote you highlighted sounds suspiciously like it was cribbed from the "Food Babe" whom Steve Novella once dubbed "The Jenny McCarthy of food."

One of the highest-profile of these new food crusaders is Vani Hari, better known by her online moniker, Food Babe. Among her victories: a petition that nudged Kraft to drop the artificial orange color from its mac and cheese, and another one that helped get Subway to do away with the common bread additive azodicarbonamide — which Hari noted was also used in making yoga mats.
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Hari also once criticized airlines for circulating air that is mixed with nitrogen at "almost 50%."

The horror.
 
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GodMark2 said:
.....
It may have been banned for good reasons. But, if that were the case, then those reasons could be directly stated now, rather than relying on "well, a few other people are doing it". That they didn't articulate the reasons directly leaves the reader to wonder if this is as meaningful as the "Contains substances known to the State of California to cause cancer" on everything that includes even potential microscopic amounts of a chemical that produced a possible cancerous reaction in one test in the 70s.
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The point is that it's not necessary, most bread products don't contain it, and it may have negative health effects.
The World Health Organization has linked this chemical additive to respiratory issues, allergies and asthma, and it is banned in Europe and Australia. Azodiacarbonamide is legal in the United States and Canada.
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https://abcnews.go.com/Health/subway-takes-chemical-sandwich-bread-protest/story?id=22373414

One of the breakdown products, derived from the original substance, is called urethane, a recognized carcinogen, the organization says. Using azodicarbonamide at maximum allowable levels results in higher levels of urethane in bread "that pose a small risk to humans," CSPI said.

Another breakdown product is semicarbazide, which poses "a negligible risk to humans" but was found to cause cancers of the lung and blood vessels in mice, CSPI said.
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https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/06/health/subway-bread-chemical/index.html

The question isn't why shouldn't it be there? The question is why should it be?
 
I'm not sure about "should", but "[a] dough conditioner, flour treatment agent, improving agent or bread improver is any ingredient or chemical added to bread dough to strengthen its texture or otherwise improve it in some way. Dough conditioners may include enzymes, yeast nutrients, mineral salts, oxidants and reductants, bleaching agents and emulsifiers. They are food additives combined with flour to improve baking functionality."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dough_conditioner

So basically it's added to the process in order to make bread faster, or cheaper, or in larger quantities, or some combination. Should we be making bread faster, cheaper, and in larger quantities? Maybe not. But there are seven billion people on this planet, and we all need to get food in our bellies. Being able to produce lots of food at low cost seems like it's going to have a lot of benefits to society.

Increasing production costs in the name of reducing health risks is not necessarily a bad idea. But it does have some obvious trade-offs that can't be addressed by simply appealing to "reduced health risks!" without examining the actual risk, the actual reduction, and the actual trade-offs.
 
theprestige said:
Should we be making bread faster, cheaper, and in larger quantities? Maybe not. But there are seven billion people on this planet, and we all need to get food in our bellies. Being able to produce lots of food at low cost seems like it's going to have a lot of benefits to society.
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Wow. That would be one hell of a noble argument if we weren't talking about a fast food franchise that sells sandwiches almost exclusively to people with lots of other options.
 
Here's an experiment: ask Paul Hollywood what he thinks of Subway's bread quality. Make sure he's not facing you directly when you ask, as the blast of contempt emitted may destroy everything in its path.
 
Babbylonian said:
Wow. That would be one hell of a noble argument if we weren't talking about a fast food franchise that sells sandwiches almost exclusively to people with lots of other options.
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Economic activity is economic activity. There's nothing inherently ignoble about providing cheap, fast food options to people.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Here's an experiment: ask Paul Hollywood what he thinks of Subway's bread quality. Make sure he's not facing you directly when you ask, as the blast of contempt emitted may destroy everything in its path.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hollywood#Early_life,_education_and_early_career

It seems like Paul has at least some experience with industrial baking. What's the point of the experiment? To see if he can put aside his extreme personal bias long enough to provide a coherent and rational explanation for why Subway's bread is bad bread in the context of their market niche and operating scale?

"As a former industrial baker myself, I think there are three things Subway could be doing to make its bread better, without increasing costs overmuch, and without reducing quality in other areas." Something like that. Could Paul tell us something like that? Or would he just spew hate and then bugger off?

Anyway, like I said:
theprestige said:
Bread enough for most people most of the time, though not always to everyone's taste, and sure to offend the purist and the legalist?
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Why are people surprised that the Irish are idiots? They spend a great deal of their time proving that they are.
 
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