George: From calorie count to portion sizes,
we wanted to find out the biggest differences
between Subway in Japan and the US.
This is "Food Wars."
In Japan, our sandwiches come in three sizes.
This one is regular,
and here we've got foot-long sub,
and this one right here is party tray.
This is party tray A,
which is three regular sandwiches
cut into 12 pieces,
or we can also get a party tray
that's three foot-long subs.
In the US, you have three sizes:
6-inch, foot-long, and the party tray.
This is five foot-longs cut into three sections,
giving us 15 sandwiches.
Not enough party in that party platter?
Subway's got you covered.
Here in the US, you can also get a 3-foot party sub.
Whoa!
Yes.
♪ Yes! ♪
Time to give this sandwich an exam.
Dude, are you kidding me?
Look at this.
I'm seeing ham. I'm seeing turkey. I'm seeing cheese.
And also we have a giant sub.
Let me show you.
[grunts]
I got this.
And this is what it looks like.
This is too big.
In Japan, our fountain drinks come in three sizes.
This one is small,
and medium,
and large.
Here in the US Subway, the website says there's a small,
but I talked to the Subway manager,
and they assured me they don't have a small,
so apparently our fountain drinks are just two sizes.
Medium, which makes no sense 'cause there's no small,
and large.
At Subway, I had to fill up, myself,
the fountain drinks, which of course I don't mind.
So any inaccuracies rest on my shoulders
and my shoulders alone.
Ooh!
40 what? Not even close.
And that was like, I filled this up to the brim.
I'm looking through this, and I'm seeing 33, maybe.
We'll be generous. We'll give them 34.
They still missed it by 6.
6 fluid ounces you guys are skimping on us?
You get a good shot of that.
Is that really 6 missing ounces?
Do we think that's 6 ounces of fluid we're missing there?
You better believe I'm on a high horse right now.
This is infuriating!
I'm really hungry, that has a lot to do with it too.
On the surface, both countries' sandwiches look the same,
but we wanted to get a closer look.
Here we have a foot-long on white turkey with lettuce,
tomato, black olives, and onions.
All right, I have got the same one,
so I'm going to weigh this.
Joe: Wow, so pretty close.
Scientific accuracy is really important in "Food Wars," so.
George: Now let's open it up and see what's inside.
Joe: Huh, only a 10-gram difference,
but ours had a lot more turkey and a lot less vegetables.
Hm.
So, here are all the Subway menu items
you can get in Japan but not in the US.
And here is everything you can get at US Subway
you cannot get in Japan.
So, let's start with new exclusive sandwiches.
So, here we've got tandoori chicken sandwich.
Mm!
The chicken itself is tender.
9 out of 10.
Congrats.
So, next one, we've got tokumori tandoori chicken sandwich.
Tokumori means extra large,
so extra-large tandoori chicken sandwich.
We've got spicy egg shrimp.
So, next one, we've got
chōkatsu chicken and cheese sandwich.
This is not good.
It doesn't have any taste.
Man, what the fudge?
So, first thing, I have this huge pile of sandwiches here.
I'll just try and do some hits.
Here is, of course, steak and cheese.
Buffalo chicken.
Yeah, I don't know.
Maybe it's 'cause they put all the veggies on here too.
They kind of just did the standard ones.
I don't think this looks very good.
Ooh, the Cali turkey.
Looks like there's spinach on here.
Oh, and bacon! Yeah, OK.
Not bad.
They ruined it with the cucumbers.
The cold cut combo.
This is, like, the sandwich, right?
If we were playing "Family Feud"
and the category was Subway sandwiches,
I feel like the cold cut combo would be No. 1, right?
Ooh, the Baja steak, everybody!
Straight from Baja California.
You know their blast, now try their steak.
Everyone in the room just groaned. [laughs]
[sighs]
I have to know, how far is that bathroom from here?
They really load it with the vegetables.
Again, why would you want all these gross veggies on ... ?
I want the meatball, and I want the sauce and the cheese.
I don't want cucumbers.
My meatball sandwich is ruined!
I'm sneaking a meatball.
Mm, mm, mm, mm.
Yeah, the Italian BMT.
Come on, this is, like, the most popular one.
See, you got the meat there. Nice-looking meat, right?
Nice-looking meat?
Then you lift up the meat, boo!
Boo!
Who ruined this sandwich with vegetables?
It is the spicy Italian.
Looks a lot like the BMT.
But yeah, dude, in Subway's defense,
these sandwiches were made,
what, three hours ago at this point?
So, here are Japan's exclusive regular menu items.
So let's start with this pizza bacon Italiana.
Itadakimasu!
I will rate this 7 out of 10.
Molto bene!
So, next one, we've got prosciutto mascarpone.
Shrimp avocado.
And I love avocado.
Next, we've got turkey, bacon, egg.
Turkey;
as you can see, bacon, right here;
and egg paste.
It's not that great.
And next, we've got chili chicken sandwich.
This is terrible.
Subway, how dare you?
[crying]
OK, I'm getting full, but let's keep going.
Here we've got avocado vegetables.
Mm!
Next, we've got egg sandwich.
All right, one thing I have to mention is that
most of these sandwiches can be a salad.
So if you like salad, go ahead.
But Joe wouldn't get this for sure.
What, did Subway get a panini press or something?
Like, look at these. They just took these sandwiches
and grilled them or whatever.
OK, this one right here is the BMT.
So, I'm just guessing for the melts,
they do it on the white bread,
and they add a bunch of cheese,
and they just grill it, right?
I mean, I can't even open this.
Like, it's locked.
Buffalo chicken melt.
Maybe there's less vegetables in it,
so maybe I do want this and I don't realize it.
Steak and cheese.
A Philly cheesesteak, right?
Blech. I know this one.
I know this one!
Tuna melt.
Turkey melt. Yeah, I guess.
I mean, I gotta say, like,
I haven't tasted them,
but the effort in these are just like,
what are you guys doing?
I mean, they just, like, flattened them.
Ham melt.
What's SP again?
Producer: Spicy Italian.
It should be SI, but it's SP for spicy, right?
That's why I'm like, "Wait a second,
is this the spaghetti one we've been talking about?"
Meatball melt. What'd they do?
They flattened the meatballs in there, right?
Oh, f---.
I mean, it's better. Less vegetables, right?
This is the chicken bacon melt.
So, this is the Japan Only sandwich.
Everything on here, you can't get in the US.
It's a 6-inch on sesame bread with tandoori chicken,
mascarpone, cream cheese, egg salad, shrimp,
chili sauce, and wasabi soy sauce.
This is a mystery sandwich.
Itadakimasu.
I said wasabi soy sauce, right?
I got wasabi attack.
It's hurting me.
It's got too many flavors, and it makes me confused.
This here is the USA Only sandwich,
a sandwich comprised of only ingredients
you can get in the United States and not in Japan.
So, I started with the jalapeño cheese bread.
It has meatballs, American cheese,
pepper jack cheese, provolone cheese,
banana peppers, good God!
Spinach, ranch, sriracha, and pepperoni.
[sighs]
Here we go.
That's actually pretty good.
I really like this.
Dude, that's good.
It's not too spicy. The jalapeño bread's really good.
The meatballs and the pepperoni work really well together.
I gotta say, the banana peppers
are actually welcome in this.
It kind of makes it a little sweeter.
I'm gonna take another bite. Yeah!
Subway, put this on your menu.
This is really good.
I challenge you, all the viewers in the United States,
start ordering this sandwich.
Let's put the pressure on Subway
to make this a featured sandwich.
This is good!
Mm!
So, here we've got snack sandwiches.
This one right here is anko sandwich.
And anko is a staple of traditional Japanese sweets.
The taste can be enjoyed alone or as a complement
to other Japanese flavors, such as matcha.
And here we've got
anko and mascarpone.
I have an announcement to make.
Subway has breakfast.
I'm just as surprised as all of you.
Specifically, they have four breakfast sandwiches
here in the US.
A bacon, egg, and cheese;
a Black Forest ham, egg, and cheese;
egg and cheese;
and steak, egg, and cheese.
I don't know which one is which.
I think this is the steak, egg, and cheese.
Oh, it's flatbread too, so I can kind of --
[laughs]
This looks like a cartoon!
Look at this!
Look at the eggs.
Are you kidding me with this?
At a Subway in the US,
you can get just about any one
of their sandwiches as a protein bowl.
From what I can tell,
that's their way of calling this a salad.
So, you know my feelings on salad.
I hate them.
Just an example, though,
we got what looks to be a turkey one.
Everything that comes on a sandwich,
but just instead of bread, it's a bowl.
Then once you're done you can throw it in the ocean.
Kill a sea turtle.
Who cares? Why?
It's a waste. It's an absolute waste.
Just eat a sandwich like a normal person.
There's nothing wrong with bread.
Just eat it! It's a sandwich!
Yeah, God.
And it's the shredded lettuce, too.
It's not, like, leafy lettuce or spinach or anything.
It's just that shredduce that they put on the sandwich.
[groans]
So, here is Japan's exclusive sides.
This one right here is korokoro potatoes, original flavor.
And next one, we've got korokoro potatoes,
triple cheese flavored.
Korokoro potatoes, herb salt flavor.
The korokoro means it's, like, rolling over and over.
Like, korokorokoro. Korokorokoro.
Rolling over and over.
And last one, we've got corn cream chowder.
Yeah dude. Chips! Chips!
Chips!
Get yourself the Baked Lays.
I mean, the undisputed chip champion in the United States
right here, baby. Nacho cheese Doritos.
A favorite. A classic Lays.
When you just wanna see what potato chips were like
in the '50s, get yourself a bag of classic Lays.
Oh, Miss Vickie's! Jalapeño, and lime cracked pepper.
I don't think I've had the lime cracked pepper.
These are so good.
Sun Chips.
I hate Sun Chips.
Here's a side that you can get in the US
you can't get in Japan.
I'm gonna go "muscle man's" applesauce.
So, here is Japan's exclusive drinks.
This one right here is iced tea,
and Pepsi, melon soda,
oolong tea, which is Chinese tea,
iced coffee, soy cocoa.
And this one right here is vegetable and fruit juice,
which has 11 kinds of vegetables and three kinds of fruits.
And this one right here is Pepsi zero.
And this one is mocha.
Iced café au lait.
And this one right here is ginger ale.
And soy latte, soy mango,
mango orange, mango juice,
mocha, and milk tea, cocoa,
hot black tea, and herb tea.
In the US, as you noticed,
we have Coke and Coke products at our Subways.
So we have Coke.
And they also have to-go bottles,
so I went ahead and got diet Coke,
Sprite, and Gatorade,
the fruit punch.
All right, Sauce Talk.
Sauce Talk.
I couldn't get any of them on the side,
but we have exclusive sauces here at the Subway in the US.
We can get a red wine vinegar, a yellow mustard,
a creamy sriracha, a Buffalo sauce, of course,
we also have ranch, chipotle southwest, marinara sauce,
sweet onion sauce, and MVP Parmesan.
The most valuable Parmesan, apparently.
I was surprised to learn that the Japanese Subway
doesn't have cookies.
The cookies are actually pretty good.
In the US, you can get a chocolate chip cookie,
an oatmeal raisin cookie,
a raspberry cheesecake cookie,
and a white chip macadamia nut cookie.
All right, so let's move on to Japan's exclusive sweets.
So, let's start with this one, chocolate brownie.
We've got cheese tart,
and this one right here is cream soda float.
And this one right here is cream latte float,
and coffee float.
In Japan, our 6-inch turkey sub on white bread
is 261 calories.
And in the US, that same turkey sub is 270 calories.
So pretty close.
But I did notice ours has much less sodium, like 26% less.
Our 6-inch tuna sub is 361 calories.
And our tuna is 430,
so a little more, but much more fat.
I have not eaten tuna anything on purpose ever.
It smells like cat food. Don't you think it smells?
I guess most cat food is tuna, so yeah.
This looks super gross, but I have to try it, right?
Let's see if my distaste is misplaced.
No.
I hate that, man.
Do you like calories?
In Japan, our most calorific sandwich
is the pizza bacon Italiana.
One 6-inch is 436 calories.
In the US, our most calorific sandwich
is the chicken and bacon ranch.
Just 6 inches of this bad boy is 500 calories,
so a foot-long is 1,000 calories.
In Japan, our regular sandwich with a small drink
and small serving of potatoes,
the total calories for this meal is 498 calories.
In the US, a 6-inch turkey sandwich
with a small drink, which the Subway I went to
said they do not have,
and a bag of chips, I went with the classic Lays,
is 750 calories.
In Japan, this meal total is 790 yen,
or $7.23 US.
In the US, that same meal is $9.14,
or about 998.26 Japanese yen.
Roughly 26.4% increase.
In Japan, we focus on having a healthy diet,
or chōkatsu meals.
Chōkatsu means having a healthy diet
that contains a lot of dietary fiber
in order to keep your intestinal environment healthy.
And it's getting common in Japan to have chōkatsu meals
at home or even at restaurants,
because a lot of Japanese people have a constipation problem
due to a lot of stress and lack of exercise.
So Subway offers a special meal
called chōkatsu chicken and cheese sandwich,
which contains a lot of dietary fiber.
So it's going to help you return to your
regular bowel movements,
and you can start your day with a No. 2.
So, we don't have anything like that,
but I can only speak for myself that
if you're experiencing constipation in the United States,
may I recommend the steak and cheese at Subway?
The Subway in Japan does not disclose
all their raw ingredients,
but they did provide the main raw ingredients
for their breads.
Japan Subway flatbread contains wheat flour,
yeast, vegetable fat and oils, skim milk powder,
wheat protein, salt, sugar,
barley malt powder, et cetera.
Well, our Subway in the US does gives us the ingredients,
and our flatbread contains all of this.
Now, there's a few similar ingredients,
and there's a bunch that are pretty close.
That "Etc." in the Japan flatbread, that gives me pause.
I mean, if that's supposed to represent
all of this other stuff, that is a huge dot dot dot,
or to be continued, or yada yada yada,
that Japan's throwing at their customers.
I mean, if America has proven anything, it's like,
you can tell us what's in the food, we don't care,
we'll still eat it.
So, I don't know what's up with the etc., guys.
Subway's tuna was a bit controversial here in the US
starting in January,
where a class action lawsuit made false claims
about their tuna meat.
The drama continued when a New York Times article
claiming to have had a lab
analyze 60 inches' worth of Subway tuna
shared the results,
saying they could not identify a species of fish
and, "No amplifiable tuna DNA was present in the sample."
Subway responded, of course,
saying it uses 100% wild-caught tuna
and even launched a website,
Subwaytunafacts.com,
to give everyone a clear and transparent look
into their tuna process.
Furthermore, USA Today did their own fact-checking
and had its doubts about how The Times
tested the tuna samples and pointed out
the lab tested for five tuna species out of 15
and concluded the tuna was too processed,
or that there was no tuna DNA.
Different tests have detected tuna in Subway sandwiches,
and experts say canned tuna
can become denatured when cooked.
Then I did my own scientific research
to find out what denatured means,
and the scientists at Dictionary.com said,
"Dear Joe, thanks for reaching out to Dictionary.com!
The word denatured means 'to destroy the characteristic
properties of (a protein or biological macromolecule)
by heat, acidity, or other effects that disrupt
its molecular conformation."
They went on to say,
"For further definition inquiries
please just use the search function on the home page
as that is what it's there for, don't email us."
So, believe what you want.
Another Subway ingredient controversy
that's a bit more clean-cut,
at least for the good people of Ireland,
is that an Irish court ruled Subway
cannot call their bread bread due to its high sugar content.
In Ireland, for bread to be considered bread,
the amount of sugar in the dough
must be 2% the flour's weight.
Subway's bread, however, the sugar content is 9.2%.
If you're new to "Food Wars," hello.
We actually have a whole nother series
where we compare the US and the UK.
You can watch every one of those episodes right now.
Click the floating box near my head.