Taco Bell Strikes Back Against "Fake Meat" Allegations

Yesterday, Change.org brought you news about Alabama's Beasley Allen firm filing a class action lawsuit against Taco Bell. The firm alleges that the fast food chain intentionally misleads consumers with its "seasoned beef" and "seasoned ground beef" tacos. In reality, Beasley Allen says, these tacos are only 36 percent real beef — the rest is made up of "extenders" like wheat oats, maltodextrin, modified corn starch, and soy lechitin, among other non-meat fillers. Now, Taco Bell is fighting back.

Soon after Change.org published its Taco Bell story and petition, I received an email from Ashley Siosan, a Taco Bell representative. Siosan provided me with the following statement from Greg Creed, President and Chief Concept Officer of the Taco Bell Corporation:

"At Taco Bell, we buy our beef from the same trusted brands you find in the supermarket, like Tyson Foods. We start with 100 percent USDA-inspected beef. Then we simmer it in our proprietary blend of seasonings and spices to give our seasoned beef its signature Taco Bell taste and texture. We are proud of the quality of our beef and identify all the seasoning and spice ingredients on our website. Unfortunately, the lawyers in this case elected to sue first and ask questions later -- and got their 'facts' absolutely wrong. We plan to take legal action for the false statements being made about our food."

Obviously readers of this blog would hardly call Tyson Foods a "trusted brand," but I digress. I was curious to see what, exactly, constituted this "proprietary blend of seasonings and spices," so I went straight to the source — Taco Bell's own nutrition Web site.

The fast food chain lists several ingredients in its signature "seasoned ground beef," including, like Creed noted, "beef, water, and seasoning," as well as salt and sodium phosphate. But here's where things get interesting: The list of "seasoning" reads like a veritable who's who of processed meat extenders and fillers. It's difficult to read through it all, but here's the full list of what Taco Bell considers to be ground beef seasonings: Isolated Oat Product, Salt, Chili Pepper, Onion Powder, Tomato Powder, Oats (wheat), Soy Lechitin, Sugar, Spices, Maltodextrin, Soybean Oil (anti-dusting agent), Garlic Powder, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Caramel Color, Cocoa Powder (processed with alkali), Silicon Dioxide, Natural Flavors, Yeast, Modified Corn Starch, and Natural Smoke Flavor.

Sure, some of these ingredients are actual seasonings, like garlic powder, onion powder, and chili pepper. But many of these "seasonings" are the very same ingredients that Beasley Allen cites as "extenders," like isolated oat product, wheat oats, soy lecithin, maltodrextrin, autolyzed yeast extract, and modified corn starch. Seems like a case of "You say potato, I say processed meat extender."

Now I can't say for sure if all these "seasonings" dilute the actual beef so much that the final taco filling is only 36 percent meat, as Beasley Allen claims. But it's quite suspicious that Creed would cite "beef, water, and seasonings" as the ingredients in Taco Bell's ground beef, and the company's own Web site admits that a healthy portion of these "seasonings" seem more like extenders than actual spices.

Grist's senior food writer, Tom Philpott, makes Taco Bell's defense seem even more suspicious. Philpott looked at the ingredients in a variety of the fast food chain's offerings, finding a "Strawberry Frutista" dessert that lacked any actual strawberries and "Southwestern Chicken" with a list of unpronounceable ingredients that rivaled the length of a paragraph in a Charles Dickens novel.

So given Taco Bell's defense and some insight into the fast food chain's "seasonings," I've got one question for you: Tu quieres Taco Bell?

If the answer is a big "Hell no," then sign our petition asking Taco Bell to stop misleading consumers and properly label its menu items.

GOT A TIP FOR US? Is there a story or campaign you think we should know about? E-mail us at foodtips@change.org. Please also follow Change.org's Sustainable Food page on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo credit: Moto@Club4AG via Flickr