If I am properly keeping up, it appears that the product is internally labelled “Taco meat filling,” but appears in nutritional information made available to the public as “seasoned beef,” and this is why “foul!” has been cried.
Careful observers will note that this section applies to raw meat products, and bright boy might just have a case if Taco Bell was selling packages labeled as “beef” containing raw meat for their consumers to take home and prepare to their taste.
All the stuff Taco Bell adds the beef is not IMO to trick folks into thinking they are getting ALL beef. That stuff is added to get the flavor and texture they are aiming for.
Imagine a “manwhich” or “sloppy joe” sandwhich. By the time you add the water, seasonings, tomato sauce, and whatevers, I imagine the percentage of that mass in the filling that is the actual beef ain’t that high.
As far as this consumer’s reasonable expectations- I can tell by taco bell’s ingredient list their seasoned ground beef taco filling is no different than the taco filling I would make at home with ground beef, an ordinary taco meat seasoning packet (which is what contains soy and oat texturizers/thickeners) , and water.
Yeah. Plus I think a “ground beef taco” made with just fried ground beef and seasonings–with no liquid of any sort–would not be terribly good. You need a bit of moisture and other flavorings in there. I would expect a more sloppy-joe like filling (like a picadillo) in a ground beef taco, not just fried up ground beef with some salt and pepper. Does anyone actually eat ground beef tacos that are just ground beef and dry spices?
For one pound of ground beef, they add: 2/3 cup onion, 1/2 cup tomato sauce, 1/2 cup chicken stock, 1 tablespoon garlic cloves, and 2 teaspoons vinegar, in addition to about 1/5 cup of spices. According to the lawsuit, it would seem that that shouldn’t be called “ground beef” either, in the context of a taco filling.
Well, there are some uehhemm… “Midwest Versions” of tacos that I have seen that are just ground beef, salt and pepper, and velveeta. (They might use some cumin and/or chili powder if they are particularly exotic.). But generally they are dry and flavorless.
I have had drier versions of authentic, homemade, groundbeef tex-mex style, restaurant tacos that appeared to be just beef, seasonings, and water… no thickening agents. But they are not particularly my favorite filling… as you say they do tend to be dry.
The title of this thread is way off and misleading. It should read that Taco Bell’s Ground Beef Taco Filling is 35% meat and 65% sauce. This suit is like saying you can’t say that Chicken ala King is made with Chicken because it contains less than 15% chicken and the rest is sauce, seasonings, thickeners, and vegetables…
Clearly, the OP and nearly everyone that has gotten wind of this meme have been actively misled.
Taco Bell appears to have accurately represented the ingredients in their products as required by law, and the complaint is worded in such a way as to give people the impression the the beef in their tacos is not really beef.
Headlines aside, we see that the complaint is that their analysis showed that the mixture was only “35% solids”, which has somehow been interpreted as “35 beef.” Still more meaningless because the product is not represented as 100% beef - though it seems clear that beef is represented in proportions which are appropriate for the context. It seems for satisfaction that all menu items containing processed foods should have full disclosure of all ingredients in the context of promotional description. Of course, this is (in a word) stupid.
Compounding the stupidity is the equation of “35% solids” with “35% beef.” People love a juicy-sounding fast-food horror story, and so there is a lot of buzz generated by these allegations, even though it appears likely that it is complete hogwash.
Does YUM Brands have any recourse for harm done to the brand, I wonder?
Here’s the actual lawsuit. I haven’t had time to read it yet, but in case anyone is interested, there it is. We can start sorting through what is actually alleged and what isn’t.
To further your very informative post, it’s quite possible to have only 35% ground beef in a list of 5 ingredients and still have it be the highest proportional ingredient. There could be 35% beef, 34% water, 28% avp (“seasoning”), 2% salt, and 1% phosphates (numbers made up, I don’t know the exact proportions).
Just because there is “only” 35% of the main ingredient doesn’t mean that one of the other ingredients must be more than 35%. There are 5 ingredients here, not 2 or 3.
I’m still wondering about the price of TVP (even though I think we’ve established that it’s not used in Taco Bell “beef”). If it really is less than or even comparable to beef, I’m thinking I should be eating more of it.
Of course, my chicken ala king is made in a heavy butter and cream/half and half sauce over puff Pastry… the gentriefied ta-co. Much less healthful to the cardiac diet.
I remember you used to be able to buy it in bulk bins <fill your own bag; doesn’t have to be a barrel, can be a cup or whatever> at Winco. And a hippie store I used to work at also had it; I would be really surprised if health places didn’t carry. It really has been around a long time, and mixed with all kinds of things to give weight to something otherwise meatless. The vegetarian’s cheat, basically.
TVP can be pretty good in things like spaghetti sauce and chili, where a lot of the flavor comes from the sauce. I made burritos for dinner tonight, and I could have used TVP for about half the ground meat that I used…but instead I used refried beans. In many ways, it’s healthier than beef or most animal protein.
I have been eating TVP since the mid 70s. Back in the day, we had a family of essentially hippies [really just an engineer and his family who decided to go with a simpler vegetarian/all natural lifestyle, so they moved out to the town and bought a small farm there] They raised and sold free range chickens and turkeys, free range eggs and a bunch of stuff, and they carried a line of TVP in various formats and flavors.
I liked the beef granules, diced faux ham, and diced faux chicken. My mother would use the beef granules in spaghetti sauce or chili, the faux ham in split pea or bean soups and the faux chicken in chicken pot pie. Since we were not making a vegan thing out of it, she used beef or chicken broth in the recipes where appropriate =)
This is a neutral unflavored granule that can be used in chili or spaghetti sauce. It pretty much absorbs what ever flavoring is in what it is cooked in. It is pretty neutral tasting, similar to tofu just a solid meaty bite feel to it, like a ground beef or turkey. These are the same just in chunks.
Really, TVP is a perfectly good product when used properly and can end up being an excellent source of protein as long as it is known that it is a soy product. It does need to be combined with a source of fat for proper metabolization. It does have all 8 aminos that humans need.
I will say that I just had the neutral chunks that were simmered in the prepackaged indian butter sauce over rice [leftovers, breakfast of champions =)] and it compares favorably to chicken. A bit more of a solid bite feel, but very acceptable even to a carnivore like me. Tofu would be a bit softer bite, so if you are looking for a very low fat protein source you have another option to go along with tofu.
This is a lot easier to reconcile with the posted ingredients than the nonsense asserted by the plaintiff’s lawyers, and I find it a lot easier to believe that an ill-considered suit has been filed than that TB has been bald-facedly lying about about their ingredients and thinking they could get away with it.
When I worked at Taco Bell, the store manager was VERY insistent that what we handed out was what was advertised. We had a new, lighter menu at that time with different wraps, beans, and meat, and we were strictly forbidden to substitute in the regular calorie version (unless requested by a customer). The reason we were given was that someone could buy something, have it analyzed, and then sue the store if it was wrong. So this is something they actually think about and work to prevent.