It’s got that special and very distinct flavor that you know and love.
It’s perfectly seasoned and has something different. Something you can’t quite put your finger on and something that you can’t seem to replicate at home not matter how hard you try…
And there’s a good reason for that… the reason it tastes so different is because it’s not 100% beef.
Here are the 4 most popular fast food tacos that don’t use 💯 % real beef.
Now you can find out what you’re actually eating, thanks to the folks over at Eat This, Not That
Taco Bell:
We know Taco Bell beef is 88% ground beef, but what constitutes the remaining 12%? Quite a few ingredients, as it happens, a few of which are rather surprising. Per the company's Ingredients page, the "Seasoned Beef" is made with beef, water, seasoning, salt, and sodium phosphates. The 12% comes in with that hearty dose of seasoning in the form of the usual suspects like chili pepper, salt, spices, tomato powder, sugar, onion powder, citric acid, natural flavors (including smoke flavor), torula yeast—a flavor enhancer like MSG—and a dash of cocoa. But also some filler that likely stretches the meat like cellulose, oats, and modified corn starch.
Del Taco:
Del Taco is another chain with beef boasting a unique flavor thanks to a complicated blend of ingredients referred to as "seasoning." The restaurant's "seasoned beef" consists primarily of beef, water, and "textured vegetable protein," a high-protein soy product that is commonly used to extend meat, according to Science Direct. The flavor comes from salt, chili pepper spices, tomato powder, garlic powder, hydrolyzed corn gluten, wheat protein, and soy protein, silicon dioxide, autolyzed yeast extract, sugar, citric acid, sodium diacetate, [and] malic acid." You'll also find added oats and isolated oat product, which is oats ground into a powder.
Jack in the Box:
If you do even a cursory search for the ingredients in Jack in the Box tacos, you'll come across a lot of internet chatter suggesting they are in fact vegetarian friendly, being made with soy protein, not beef. This is false, though, per Veg Knowledge: Jack in the Box tacos absolutely contain beef. The "meat" just happens to contain a lot of other ingredients, too, like ground dark chicken, textured vegetable protein, defatted soy grits, (that's the soy), and a whole lot of stuff in the seasoning.
Taco Johns:
It's hard to find the actual ingredients used in the beef served at Taco John's, but we know one thing: there's at least some soy in it. That's because when you look at the allergen information the chain shares on its website, every single item that uses ground beef lists soy as a present allergen, and that's true whether it's a taco in a crispy corn shell or one wrapped in a soft wheat tortilla or for burritos and so on. We reached out to Taco John's to see how the soy is used but have not yet heard back.
Those last two are the worst. All that soy and other “mystery meats” mixed in. That can’t be good for you. I can remember eating A LOT of those delicious Jack in the Box tacos late at night.
It’s shocking and scary how delicious they can make garbage taste… and that’s a huge problem in this country. We’re all eating tasty garbage and it’s making us fat and sick.
