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  • Harry Kersh: From calorie count to portion sizes,

  • we wanted to find out all the differences

  • between Subway in the UK and the US.

  • This is "Food Wars."

  • At Subway in the UK,

  • you can get sandwiches in four different sizes.

  • Firstly, we have toasted bites,

  • a 6-inch sub,

  • a foot-long sub,

  • and then

  • you can get a platter.

  • Joe Avella: And in the US, we have three sizes.

  • The 6-inch.

  • The foot-long.

  • There you go.

  • For you and your team,

  • [grunts] the big boy.

  • Party platter.

  • The old Subway platypus.

  • Harry: Now, in the UK, a platter looks like this.

  • What they do is they make four foot-long sandwiches,

  • then they cut those into fours.

  • So you're left with 16 pieces,

  • each of which is 3 inches.

  • Joe: And for the party platter here,

  • they take five sandwiches,

  • cutting them into three pieces,

  • giving you 15 sandwiches total.

  • In addition, in the US you can also get yourself

  • a 3-foot-long party sub.

  • [laughs]

  • Look at this thing!

  • This is ridiculous.

  • 3 feet, so that is, what that's in...

  • what do you got in the UK?

  • That's...17 meters?

  • I have no idea.

  • Yeah!

  • Harry: Now, in the UK, drinks at Subway come in two sizes.

  • We have a regular, which is 400 milliliters.

  • Joe: 20-ounce Sprite. What up?

  • Harry: And we have a large.

  • Joe: 30-ounce. Boom.

  • And if you're really thirsty,

  • [laughs]

  • 40 ounces of soda.

  • 40 ounces is a little over three cans of soda.

  • That is way too much soda.

  • It is way too, that's just too much.

  • Harry: If you're a fan of Subway's cookies,

  • in the UK those come in three sizes.

  • One cookie.

  • Three cookies.

  • Or 12 cookies.

  • Joe: In the US Subway, you can get a single cookie,

  • a dozen cookies,

  • right like that,

  • or

  • the [laughs]

  • hang on, keep rolling,

  • the 36-cookie platter!

  • Booyah!

  • [laughs]

  • I'm like in Vegas, baby! All in.

  • Harry: We wanna make sure that you're getting

  • the same amount of filling as you do in the US

  • here in the UK.

  • So, what we've got here is a foot-long Italian BMT

  • on hearty Italian

  • with lettuce and olives.

  • We're gonna weigh it to see if the quantities

  • are the same.

  • Joe: All right, BMT.

  • Stay.

  • Harry: So, the weights are pretty similar.

  • What we're gonna do is take them apart

  • and see how it all adds up.

  • So, when it comes to the amount of filling that you get

  • in your subs, it looks like the UK and the US

  • are actually pretty identical.

  • So, what about calories?

  • We found out that the most popular sub at Subway

  • is actually the turkey breast sub.

  • So if you were to walk into a UK Subway

  • and order a regular turkey breast sub

  • and then make it a meal by including a regular drink

  • and a cookie, you'd be looking at 621 calories.

  • Joe: That same order in the US is 690 calories.

  • Now, the sub itself is actually

  • less calories. It's only 250.

  • But the drink, the medium Coke, is around 240,

  • and the cookie is 200 calories.

  • But wait! According to the internet,

  • in the US the default actually comes with two cookies,

  • which brings it to a grand total of 890 calories.

  • Harry: What about the calories in another sub?

  • Well, in the UK, 6 inches of meatball marinara

  • comes in at 492 calories.

  • Joe: In the US, 6-inch meatball

  • is only 430 calories.

  • Yo.

  • Harry: Now, because we're not sure why our meatball sub

  • is more calorific, we're actually gonna do another test.

  • We're gonna bring back our friend the scales.

  • And we're gonna weigh a meatball.

  • Just...

  • clean that bit.

  • Delicious.

  • Boom.

  • Joe: And now I will also weigh one meatball.

  • Gonna find a good one.

  • Don't want the sauce to throw off these measurements.

  • Get in real close. Get in real close over there.

  • Ready? You close?

  • Close? Here we go.

  • Drumroll.

  • And...uh!

  • How much is it?

  • No change?

  • Our scale is not very accurate. Sorry.

  • Let's get that weight up on the screen!

  • Harry: Unfortunately, Subway in the UK

  • doesn't disclose the full ingredients list.

  • However, there are some things

  • we can glean from the website.

  • In the UK, the ham, turkey breast, and steak

  • that you'll find in your sandwiches are actually "formed."

  • Joe: The turkey bologna and the turkey salami

  • are also made by a process known as

  • mechanically separated turkey.

  • [typing] "Mechanically separated

  • turkey."

  • What do we got here?

  • Harry: From the allergens list in the UK,

  • we can also see that our meatballs contain milk,

  • although it's not clear if the meatballs contain the milk

  • or if it just comes with cheese by default.

  • Joe: We do have the ingredients list

  • of the meatball sandwich at Subway,

  • and I'll read that to you right now.

  • Oh, boy.

  • Beef, water, breadcrumbs,

  • and then we have the kind of square brackets,

  • [toasted wheat crumbs,

  • and now we have the curved brackets,

  • (enriched wheat flour,

  • now we have the fancy brackets,

  • {wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron,

  • thiamine mononitrate,

  • riboflavin, folic acid},

  • close fancy brackets,

  • sugar, salt, soybean oil, yeast)],

  • and then close the other two brackets.

  • [clears throat]

  • Textured soy protein concentrate, seasoning,

  • open brackets again,

  • (dehydrated onion and garlic, salt, spices,

  • dehydrated parsley, soybean oil), close brackets,

  • soy protein concentrate, and Romano cheese.

  • Can you scroll up, please?

  • Keep going. Keep going.

  • The Romano cheese,

  • which is made from pasteurized "part-skin" cow's milk.

  • [sighs] I'm assuming it's "skim" cow's milk.

  • But to be honest, if I told you

  • there was cow skin in this food, would you be surprised?

  • Part-skim cow's milk,

  • cheese cultures, salts, and enzymes.

  • "Which enzymes?" you ask.

  • They're not at liberty to say,

  • but rest assured there are enzymes.

  • Now, on the bright side, the dough is pretty much normal.

  • For the classic Italian bread,

  • the ingredients are enriched flour,

  • which is wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron,

  • thiamine mononitrate,

  • nitrate? Yeah. OK.

  • Riboflavin, folic acid,

  • water, yeast, sugar,

  • soybean oil, salt, wheat gluten,

  • cultured wheat flour,

  • malted barley flour,

  • sunflower lechithin.

  • Lecithin.

  • Leckithin?

  • Hey, did you hear that?

  • Phone: Lecithin. Joe: Lecithin!

  • Sunflower lecithin, dough conditioner,

  • which also has enzymes.

  • Which ones, you don't know.

  • And ascorbic acid.

  • [sighs] All that stuff.

  • Harry: While we might not have an ingredients list

  • for our bread, we do know

  • that it's likely to not be perfect.

  • For example, an Irish court recently declared

  • that Subway cannot call its loaves "bread"

  • due to the high sugar content.

  • Subway uses more than 10% sugar in their flour.

  • Here's everything you can only find on the menu

  • at a UK Subway.

  • So, let's start with the subs.

  • Now, there are a few kind of default subs

  • that you can only find in the UK.

  • So then once you've chosen your sub and your bread,

  • we've also got a few other customization options

  • that are exclusive to the UK.

  • For example, in this sub we've combined a bunch of them.

  • So, I've gone for chicken tikka.

  • It has hash browns.

  • It has sweet corn.

  • It has vegan garlic aioli.

  • It has HP brown sauce,

  • and it has whole-grain mustard.

  • So, brown sauce is kind of

  • a traditional British condiment.

  • The biggest brand manufacturer of it

  • is a brand called HP,

  • which stands for Houses of Parliament,

  • to maybe give a nod --

  • Joe: Harry, are you really Brit-splaining to me HP sauce?

  • I love HP sauce.

  • I've been having HP sauce,

  • I've had a bottle of HP sauce in my fridge

  • for at least the past 20 years.

  • Harry: Over here, we have the

  • meatless meatball marinara sub

  • with some vegan "mozzarella" cheese as well.

  • And it's on chili paprika bread.

  • Joe: Our exclusive customizations in the US

  • include avocado, pepper jack cheese, provolone,

  • Swiss cheese, and banana peppers.

  • And if you like your sauce,

  • you can make your sauce --

  • [laughs]

  • If you like a saucy sub,

  • you can have the sauciest Subway saucy sub

  • here in the United Sauce,

  • because we have all these sauces,

  • including a balsamic sub sauce, a creamy sriracha,

  • a deli brown mustard, yellow mustard,

  • you guys don't have yellow mustard?

  • That can't be right.

  • Sorry if you don't have yellow mustard.

  • I thought that was everywhere.

  • Oil.

  • Oil?

  • You guys don't have oil either?

  • OK.

  • Subway herb and garlic oil,

  • ranch, red wine vinaigrette,

  • and a special "sub" spice.

  • Harry: So, moving the subs to one side for a second,

  • we also have some side dishes

  • which are exclusive to the UK.

  • Let's start with this,

  • which kind of surprised me when I saw it on the menu,

  • but you can actually just get

  • a cup of meatballs from Subway.

  • Next we have the garlic cheesy bread,

  • which I think is just half of their hearty Italian 6-inch

  • with some garlic butter on it,

  • and then they kind of sprinkle some cheese on top

  • and throw it in the toaster oven.

  • The last side dish is nachos.

  • They actually just get some Doritos,

  • throw them into a box,

  • give you some cheese, some jalapeños.

  • Joe: That is an insult to nachos.

  • Those are the kind of nachos you make in your 20s

  • when you're drunk at 2 in the morning.

  • Chips, cheese, microwave it, throw on some salsa.

  • That is the most depressing plate of nachos I've ever seen.

  • That is the worst thing associated,

  • excuse me, that is the second-worst thing

  • associated with the Subway franchise.

  • The only exclusive side that you can get

  • at a Subway in the US is the applesauce pouch,

  • which we don't have.

  • Unfortunately, the two Subways we went to

  • did not have them available.

  • Can we get a graphic of the applesauce pouch

  • on the screen somewhere near my head?

  • Yeah, it looks like that.

  • Harry: Now, we wanted to get as many UK exclusives

  • into one sub as possible.

  • So this is my creation.

  • I'll be clear, this is not my usual order.

  • You get the tang of the brown sauce

  • with the little popping sweetness of the sweet corn.

  • And then I just got, like, a whole

  • hash brown in there as well.

  • Do not order the UK Only sub.

  • Joe: And of course, we put together a sub

  • with all the USA-only ingredients,

  • which is a foot-long barbecue rib sandwich

  • with the jalapeño cheddar bread and avocado

  • and pepper jack cheese and provolone cheese

  • and Swiss cheese and banana peppers.

  • Ugh, the US with banana peppers.

  • I don't know what our thing is with banana peppers.

  • I'm not into banana peppers.

  • I don't know why they're so popular here.

  • That's actually pretty good.

  • I actually like that.

  • The jalapeño bread. Wow!

  • Oh, man, the sriracha sauce.

  • Ooh, and the avocado.

  • Whoa, it's got some heat to it, too.

  • I'm totally surprised. I kind of like that.

  • Yeah!

Harry Kersh: From calorie count to portion sizes,

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