Watch Out For The 'beef' At Taco Bell

[mushroom]

It would appear that Taco Bell have been using a few unadvertised ingredients in its 'beef'. I don't know if any of our posters eat at Taco Bell, but they should probably read this:

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[Cypressmyst]

Disgusting. Not that I have eaten there in ages anyway well before going gluten-free but...yuck.

Thanks for posting!

[Takala]

Taco Bell "beef" filling, 36% "beef," and 64% other stuff:

Water

* Isolated oat product (didn't grandma used to call this - fiber ? )

Salt

Chili pepper

Onion powder

Tomato powder

*Oats (wheat)

Soy lecithin

Sugar

Spices

*Maltodextrin (a polysaccharide that is absorbed as glucose)

Soybean oil (anti-dusting agent)

Garlic powder

*Autolyzed yeast extract

Citric acid, caramel color

Cocoa powder

Silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent)

*Natural flavors

Yeast

*Modified corn starch

Natural smoke flavor

Salt

Sodium phosphate

Less than 2% of beef broth

Potassium phosphate

Potassium lactate

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No quiero Taco Sell !

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edited 1/26/11 to add that the 36% - 64% meat to "other" ingredient ratio claim, came from stories in many media outlets including the Huffington Post, ABC world news, Gizmodo, etc, based on the class action lawsuit filed by an Alabama law firm, Blood Hurst & O' Reardon, LLP, San Diego, CA, which says the USDA requires at least 40% meat for anything being sold as "meat filling," but Taco Bell is calling the filling "beef" in its advertising.

quote: "In reality, a substantial majority of the filling is comprised of substances other than beef, and is required to be labeled and advertised as "Taco Meat Filling." "Taco meat filling is not Beef." "This action seeks to require Taco Bell to properly advertise and label these food items and to engage in corrective advertising... "

Amanda Obney, plaintiff, vs. Taco Bell Corporation, defendant

[kareng]

My boys have friends that LOVE TB. They want to like it, too. But they both hate it! I make better tacos and quesidillas at home.

[Juliebove]

I have long known this. I think if you had to eat there, the only safe things are the beans and rice. Golden Corral also uses wheat in their taco meat.

[modiddly16]

If anyone is shocked by the lack of real beef in their meat, they should probably get out more!!

[larry mac]

I'm curious where the 36/64% came from. That's not information that is disclosed on the packaging. Ingredients by law are listed in order by weight. The second largest ingredient is water, which is very heavy in comparison with the non-meat ingredients.

I suspect someone just made up those percentages. There are many food products that use TVP as an extender. Nobody's making a fuss about that.

Come on people, what do you expect for a buck?

best regards, lm

[Jestgar]

From the Huffington post:

Attorney Dee Miles said attorneys had Taco Bell's "meat mixture" tested and found it contained less that 35 percent beef.

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[larry mac]

The FIRST people I would mistrust would be lawyers! It's their job to lie for their clients.

The second people I would mistrust would be small independent labs. I can't look that link up right now (I'm on a work computer), so I don't know which lab was used. But I have a story.

I worked at Core Labs, an international gas & oil service company with labs all over the world. One of my duties was to go on location where someone had blown themselves up lighting their furnace and collect samples of propane from their actual tank. This is always done under the watchful eyes of lawyers representing the family and the lawyers representing the gas company (that is being sued by the family). The plaintiffs always claim there was no odorant in the propane, and therefore no warning smell that would have alerted the person blown up that he should not light the furnace. By law, a certain amount of a horrible smelling chemical (methyl mercaptan) must be added to the propane, which is odorless.

What actually happens though, the person does smell the odorant, but doesn't recognize the hazard. Anyway, the plaintiffs lawyers get some tiny lab to analize the samples and always say there is no odorant. We would analize the same samples and there would indeed be odorant. Being the one that did the analysis, I can personally attest to that. We had no reason to lie. I made the same money one way or the other, and whatever the results were, that's what they were.

That's why I'm interested in finding out more about that analysis. I'm thinking a lot of that percentage is water. That would be misleading.

best regards, lm