Subway is clearly positioned as the “healthy alternative” to typical fast food fare such as McDonalds or Burger King.  Yes, I am going to reuse this clip:

They’ve given us their low fat, Fresh Fit menu of subs under six grams of fat.  This, in turn, has given us Jared, who essentially came up with the Subway Diet.  He initially weighed in at 425 pounds, and by the end of a year, had dropped to 180 pounds.  Jared added exercise to his daily routine and ate two six-inch “under six grams of fat” sandwiches a day.  Much more recently, they changed up their combo plan to include the option to substitute chips and soda for fruit and water. 

Clearly the healthy alternative, right?  Wrong.  Aside from the obvious that the dressings and cheese add fat and calories (I always get cheese anyway), they’ve recently begun doing some strange things.  And they’ve been doing these in the wake of other fast food chains trying to introduce healthier food.  First, they really started pushing the “double meat.”  For any six inch or footlong sub you might order, they would ask if you wanted to double your meat.  It was strange enough that they had dedicated this whole part of the menu to doubling up the meat, but even stranger that you couldn’t order a sub with out being asked.

Now, they have replaced the “double stacked” with the “Super Stuffed.”  This is a sandwich that is larger than the footlong, and contains 3x the meat of a 6 inch sub (although, when I saw them making a Super Stuffed Steak and Cheese, it was 4x the meat and cheese of a six inch sub).  It was so big, that the guy needed help moving it down the assembly line.  It was quite a spectacle.  I asked the guys working there if people were really ordering these giant sandwiches, and they said yes.  They ran out of the “special” bread both times I have been there lately, so I guess people really are going for the Super Stuffed. 

I checked the website, and of course they do not have the nutritional info for these enormous subs up yet (nor do they really disclose all of their sandwiches, but do feature the low fat menu prominently).