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This Is What Really Hides In Taco Bell's "Beef"
This Is What Really Hides In Taco Bell's "Beef"
Taco Bell doesn't use beef in their "beef"-based pseudo-Mexican delicacies. They use a gross thing called "Taco Meat Filling" as shown on their big container's labels—which customers can't see. The list of ingredients is not very appetizing:
Water, isolated oat product, 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, and potassium lactate.
Oh, and 36% beef. Thirty-six percent—plus all the above making up for the other 64% of the party in your mouth.
According to the USDA, you can't call this "beef" at all. Beef is defined as "flesh of cattle". Grounded beef is defined as:
Chopped fresh and/or frozen beef with or without seasoning and without the addition of beef fat as such, shall not contain more than 30 percent fat, and shall not contain added water, phosphates, binders, or extenders.
Which is certainly nothing like what Taco Bell is using in their products. That's the reason why an Alabama law firm is presenting a lawsuit for false advertising, claiming that what Taco Bell claims is "beef" in their commercials is just the aforementioned processed clustermass of disgust. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems they have a very good point.
The fact is that the containers in which the taco mud arrives to their establishments is labeled as "taco meat filling," which is exactly how it should be labeled in all advertising and packaging according to the USDA. Of course, new Double Decker with Two Time More Taco Meat Filling doesn't sound very good.
The irony is that not even if Taco Bell used Taco Meat Filling in their packaging and ads they would be right: The USDA says that any food labeled as "meat taco filling" should at least have 40% fresh meat. According to the Alabama law firm, their stuff only has 36% meat. Perhaps they should call it Almost Taco Meat Filling.
In any case, thank you, Corporate America, for yet another episode of food fun. [WTOL]
Send an email to Jesus Diaz, the author of this post, at jesus@gizmodo.com.
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Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.I'm on a diet so I don't eat at taco bell. For the most part, my cravings and temptations are easy to manage but this is making want Taco Hell taco meat filling-filled tacos.What is wrong with me?! (a: nothing, Taco Hell is the bomb) Reply
The only thing even possibly offensive about that list is the silicon dioxide (which is just a fancy word for "sand" folks.)
It's 36% beef and 64% soy bean stuff with a bunch of spices and seasoning and stuff to add color and thicken it.
Pro-tip, if your stew or au jus isn't thick enough a bit of flour or starch can do wonders, which is exactly what Taco Bell does here.Honestly, this kind of grandstanding is just borne of ignorance. First learn to cook, then learn to science and you'll find that this shit is actually not that shocking, but mostly just fancy words for shit cooks have been doing in their kitchens for some time now.
Yeah, the beef product is mostly soy protein. Oh the huge manatee! Life is over! Reply
Um, I guess I don't see what's disgusting? I'm rather impressed with that ingredient list. Yes, it's a low on actual beef content, however, it has a lot more natural ingredients than I would have expected It's basically just beef, filler (oats), spices, and some preservatives.Maybe I just know too much about food but there's far, far, far worse out there. Reply
Not to be bitchy or anything, but what in that list is actually bad? I can guarantee that if you made your own seasoned beef it would contain basically all of those ingredients.I challenge anyone to explain why any one of those ingredients are actually bad for you.
Hint: The potassium sorbate and lactate are preservatives you find it 90% of preserved foods and have LD50's roughly equivalent with table salt. Reply
All of Taco Bell's food tastes about the same. They just rearrange it for new products. I go to Del Taco instead, but I wonder if their beef is real too. Reply
Look - you want the flying cars.. the jet packs... well, you also get Soylent Yellow.I refer Soylent Cola.
How does it taste?
It varies from person to person... Reply
I know that when I am eating this shit, it is crap, even if it tastes good, but what the fuck: "anti-dusting agent?"I'll probably go back anyway. Reply
Edited by Ham_Sandwich at 01/24/11 11:59 PM
BREAKING GIZMODO NEWS:That 69 cent food you bought that gave you diarrhea for three days might not be real beef!!!
We will present more information as it streams out for us. Reply
Just as an aside, this is a sensationalist piece. Your
"list of ingredients" doesn't match the one in the photo. Beef is an obvious first ingredient. Yes, you mention it afterwards but you're warping the truth just a little bit.That said, realizations like this make me wonder why places like Taco Bell don't just remove all meat from their products. Obviously, if you can remove 64% of the beef from a "meat product" and still call it as such and have people eat it and not notice the difference, why not just remove all the beef? I'm sure no one would miss it. In fact I'm pretty sure the low-grade beef they put into their filling is probably the worst part of that mixture. Aside from the beef this sounds like vegetarian ground beef subsitute, which actually tastes pretty good. And hey, it would be even cheaper that way, for everyone involved. Reply
No kidding. It would take a great deal of malice and effort make real beef taste like the food at Taco Bell. Color me unsurprised no. 4. Reply
What really irks me about these types of labels is that you don't get to know how much of each ingredient is in your product. I've always thought it meant that the product that comes first has the highest percentage showing in the product. Am I wrong? If there is 36% beef then that means there must be no more than 35.9% water, right?Just because there are 20 ingredients in a product does not mean that they each occupy 1/20th of the physical space of the product. The following list of items could count for 50% or 99% of the product for all we know:
"Beef, water, isolated oat product, salt, chili pepper, onion powder, tomato powder, oats (wheat), soy lecithin, sugar, spices"
With the exception of oat product, oats, and soy lecithin, every single one of those ingredients is what you'd find in your own homemade taco meat at home.
These labels make you imagine that you are shoveling spoonfuls of potassium phosphate into your mouth when it could literally make up only .0001% of the product. Reply
Pizza Hut does the same thing. They don't offer "ground beef" as a topping. They offer "beef topping." Reply
Easy, just call it taco filling. No beef, no meat, no problem. ReplyEdited by My name is Nelson, I like to dance! at 01/24/11 11:50 PM
Actually, I believe that they call their products "beefy" which turns out to be fairly accurate. "is that a beef burrito?" "no, its beefy". Reply
I'm not sure we should be looking to the USDA to determine our food standards. I'm sure Pepsico has the USDA in its back pocket. Reply
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