Processed Food Land: Taco Bell "Meat"

If you haven't seen the headlines today, someone is suing Taco Bell for faulty advertising when it comes to the meat in their tacos. The class-action suit alleges that the "seasoned ground beef" has too many ingredients that aren't beef in it to be called beef. In fact, they're saying it's less than 35% beef.

When I saw the news I thought, "Wait. Didn't we already all know that stuff wasn't exactly beef?"

The Vancouver Sun's Breakdown of the Suit

Putting all those extra things in the "seasoned ground beef" lowers costs (it's sort of like extending a sauce by adding water) and keeps it "fresh" for extended periods of time. If that less than 35% statement is correct though, I have to say... I don't think it can be called beef then. That would be like if two pieces of spinach fell onto a plate of half a rotisserie chicken with a side of corn and we called it a salad.

Author Michael Pollan has suggested before that if a food item you buy at the store has a rather lengthy ingredient list (I believe he says longer than 6 items) and they're things your grandmother wouldn't recognize as ingredients, then perhaps you should reconsider eating that food.

Elle and I ate Taco Bell from time to time as kids. In fact, we ate soft tortilla tacos at the same kitchen table in her parents' house on a couple of occasions. I think even back then though we knew it wasn't really completely ground beef. It didn't quite taste the same as what our mothers made. But it was exciting because we got in a car and someone quickly handed food through a magical window to whomever was driving - not because it tasted particularly good.

We were actually just talking about this a couple of months ago and there is no way we'd chose to eat that now. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who think this lawsuit is silly, but my hope is that it'll draw more people's attention to what it is they're actually eating - regardless of where they're buying it.

To read more about today's "beef" headline including the ingredients of the processed food in question:
This is What Really Hides in Taco Bell's "Beef" (Gizmodo)
A beef with Taco Bell: When is Meat Not Really Meat? (Vancouver Sun)

There's also about 1,000 articles if you type in "Taco Bell Beef" on Google News.