Taco Bells meat is just as natural as any others

When Alabama-based firm Beasley Allen dropped a lawsuit that claimed Taco Bell falsely advertised the quantity of meat in its beef product, the fast-food chain began thoroughly rubbing it in their face.

Taco Bell, owned by Yum Brands Incorporated, the parent company of Pizza Hut and KFC, has unleashed a public relations rampage since the case was dropped Tuesday, which included full-page newspaper ads in USA Today, the New York Times and other major publications, as well as on television and online.

Taco Bell’s defensiveness is understood, as its “seasoned beef” isn’t really just seasonings and meat, according to the company’s website.

But unless one strictly refrains from eating any type of factory-processed food products, foods that most eat on a daily basis, there is really nothing to worry about.

The suit, filed in January, said Taco Bell meat product contained only 35 percent beef, the rest being filler. Yet according to the Washington Post, the suit was dropped because the two plaintiffs said the company changed its advertising techniques, which Taco Bell adamantly denies.

Taco Bell’s newspaper ads said it’s always used 100 percent USDA-inspected premium beef. But this should include an asterisk, since they use 100 percent beef to make up 88 percent of their final product, or “seasoned beef.”

Of the 12 percent that’s not meat, only 4 percent is seasoning, which includes “salt, chili pepper, onion powder, tomato powder, sugar, garlic powder, and cocoa powder,” according to Taco Bell‘s website.

The remaining content is comprised of water, oats, citric acid, yeast, caramelized sugar, soy lecithin, maltodextrin, soybean oil, autolyzed yeast extract, caramel color, silicon dioxide, yeast, corn starch and sodium phosphates – not exactly traditional Mexican ingredients.

But contemporary food products, produced by companies pressing to generate the greatest profit margin for stockholders, stopped being natural a long time ago in favor of lower prices and greater convenience for consumers.

McDonald’s “100 percent Angus Beef Patty” also contains the same autolyzed yeast extract, maltodextrin soy bean oil citric acid and caramel color found in Taco Bell’s “seasoned beef,” in addition to dextrose, maltodextrin and other fine ingredients.

Even when eating at home, Hot Pockets popular pepperoni pizza baked sandwiches are made with ingredients that include sodium aluminum phospate, sodium citrate, carrageenan gum, distilled monoglycerides, tricalcium phosphate, casein, thimamin mononitrate and even riboflavin, according to ingredients listed on the package.

The fact is, it’s hard nowadays to find any processed food product that doesn’t include some ingredients containing strange-sounding synthetic compounds.

Taco Bell was simply unlucky enough to have this reality brought to the forefront, which is just as unnatural as anything else contemporaries gobble down.