Subway is arguably one of the most health-conscious fast food places out there. They’ve always taken pride in how fresh their food is (it’s even in their motto), and their products do actually reflect that. But there’s more to pay attention to when eating than just freshness. Listening to requests going back a couple of years, Subway announces antibiotic-free chicken sandwiches.
Subway’s anti-antibiotic move
The sandwich making fast food company is the first in the world to promise to try removing all antibiotics from their food as soon as possible. The started off with chicken, because they are the easiest to grow and keep serving. They will move on to other products as soon as the new, antibiotic-free batches are done.
The first to come with the change will be the rotisserie style chicken sandwich starting March 1st. More than 27,000 restaurants across the United States will make the change, and those around the world will hopefully soon follow. The anno8ncement that this will happen came on the 20th of October 2015.
Because more and more consumers are aware and interested in what they eat, the company considers it’s important to satisfy their customers’ desires. So, they are making a country-wide effort to remove all of the antibiotics, colors, artificial flavors and preservatives from their menus.
If the company is to have its way, they will have a 100% organic and natural menu, without any added chemicals by the year 2025. This will be achieved while keeping the same affordable and high-quality standards and this is why it will take so long.
The company will start with the antibiotics in rotisserie chicken sandwiches (coming March 1st), move to chicken strips (April 1st), and continue with salads, soups, cookies, and most sandwich ingredients (sometime 2017). The rest will take a while, as the animals take a longer time to grow.
Animals and antibiotics
The main concern regarding antibiotics in animals is that they will create new superbugs and make infections far more difficult to treat in humans due to our bodies getting a resistance to those antibiotics because of our prolonged and repeated exposure to them.
It has already become a public health issue, as the FDA reports a 23% increase in the use of antibiotics in poultry between 2009 and 2014. This has led to countless health issues, over 2 million diseases derived as superbugs from abusing antibiotics in animals.
Over 23,000 deaths every year are owed to these antibiotic resistant superbugs created by inducing drug overdoses in animals and allowing viruses to mutate and stop being affected by the antibiotic that used to be their weakness.
Image source: Geograph.org.uk
