Fast Food Portion Sizes Often Misrepresented

Last week, we spotlighted a lawsuit filed against Taco Bell for selling some menu items that had much less filling than advertised. Many of you wrote that other fast food chains do the same thing.

Subway

This is a six-inch roast beef sandwich as pictured on the Subway website.

According to the nutrition section of their website, the six-inch sub has only 25 grams of protein, presumably all from the roast beef. According to a post of an employee of Subway, there is only about 2.5 ounces of roast beef in their six-inch sandwich.

Yet, the sandwich depicted above seems to have way more than that, perhaps about eight or nine thick slices of roast beef. What are the odds that your sandwich will look like the picture?

We asked the company to justify the difference, but they did not respond.

Arby’s

Arby’s, whose slogan is “We have the meats,” is best known for its roast beef sandwiches. Here are pictures from its website of the three sizes they offer:

MrConsumer doesn’t have an Arby’s in his area, but suspects the sandwiches may not be piled quite as high as their photos depict.

In the case of the half pound roast beef, presumably you really do get eight ounces of meat, but this screen capture from a YouTube video suggests it is not piled as high as the advertisement suggests, and the meat is nowhere near as rare and appetizing looking.

But let’s focus on their regular sandwich and the double meat size. The double meat one sure doesn’t look like double the size of the smaller one. And checking the nutrition guide on the Arby’s site, the analysis there proves it does not contain double the meat.

*MOUSE PRINT:

The smaller sandwich has 23 grams of protein, presumably from the roast beef, but the double-size one only has 38 grams — not double.

We asked the company for an explanation, but they did not respond.

Fried Chicken Sandwiches

It seems like advertising for many restaurants’ chicken sandwiches come with a really thick piece of chicken. Here is KFC’s fried chicken sandwich:

And here is KFC’s Ultimate Chicken sandwich as advertised in a TV commercial. It appears to be half the size of this man’s head.

Popeye’s fried chicken sandwiches have garnered rave reviews and their advertising also depicts them with a really big piece of chicken.

Here is an actual Popeye’s fried chicken sandwich as captured in a YouTube video. It does seem pretty thick and similar to the advertising.

*MOUSE PRINT:

We don’t know how the actual chicken sandwiches you get at your local location of these chains compares to the pictures they use, but it seems unlikely the reality matches the advertising in all cases. Tell us what your experience has been in the comments.

If you find other examples of abundant meat in fast food advertising but what you get is much less, please submit pictures of both to edgar (at symbol) MousePrint.org .