While we all know that fast food isn’t the healthiest of options for fueling our bodies, we can’t seem to get through life without avoiding McDonald’s, Wendy’s or Taco Bell entirely.
If we can’t avoid eating at these chain establishments, we should at least be able to avoid being lied to about the ingredients in their food.
Not the case with Taco Bell’s beef products, according to Amanda Obney, a California woman who has filed a class-action suit against the Mexican-inspired fast food restaurant.
The woman claims that Taco Bell is guilty of false advertising. She insists that they stop referring to their “seasoned ground beef or seasoned beef” as such, because the substantial amount of ingredients that make up the “beef” are anything but that.
The woman claims that only 35 percent of the “taco meat filling”—what industry insiders and Taco Bell employees refer to the product as—is solid meat, well under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s policy requirement of 40 percent fresh meat. Taco Bell’s “beef” falls short of what the USDA defines beef as being—flesh of cattle—as well.
Obney’s suit said Taco Bell's ground beef is made of such components as water, isolated oat product, wheat oats, soy lecithin, maltodextrin, anti-dusting agent, autolyzed yeast extract, modified corn starch and sodium phosphate, as well as some beef and seasonings.
The California woman is not seeking money for the suit; she simply wants Taco Bell to stop lying to consumers. Her suit also claims that “Taco Bell's definition of 'seasoned beef' does not conform to consumers' reasonable expectation or ordinary meaning of seasoned beef, which is beef and seasonings.”
Taco Bell intends to defend their products and fight the suit. In one media-prepared statement, Taco Bell released the following: “Taco Bell prides itself on serving high quality Mexican inspired food with great value. We're happy that the millions of customers we serve every week agree. We deny our advertising is misleading in any way and we intend to vigorously defend the suit."
It is important to educate ourselves and be mindful of what fast food restaurants are serving up. While we can't always control what restaurants put into their food, we can control what food we put into our bodies.
Lawsuit filed in beef over Taco Bell ‘meat’
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/fl-taco-bell-suit-20110124,0,684235.story
Lawsuit: Taco Bell’s beef actually “taco meat filling”
http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=13887418
Lawsuit: Taco Bell ground beef is really just “meat filling”
http://consumerist.com/2011/01/lawsuit-says-taco-bell-ground-beef-is-really-just-taco-meat-filling.html