Beasley Allen, an Alabama based law firm is taking Taco Bell to court over their beef - or supposed lack of it.  The claims are that the “beef” the Bell uses is not quite enough…well, beef.  The USDA standards state that in order for meat to be classified as meat it must contain at least 40% meat. 

40%?  Really?  I guess gone are the days where meat is a good old chunk of flesh.  Oh grow up!  I don’t want to hear how ‘gross’ that sounds because it is what it is.  Stop pretending that all of the sudden the TRUTH makes it gross.

Anyway, the firm alleges that the meat at The Border is only 36% meat which of course is below standards.  “The other 64% is mostly tasteless fibers, various industrial additives and some flavoring and coloring. Everything is processed into a mass that actually looks like beef, and packed into big containers labeled as “taco meat filling.” These containers get shipped to Taco Bell’s outlets and cooked into something that looks like beef, is called beef and is advertised as beef by the fast food chain.”

Now to be fair, they aren’t asking for any money but oddly enough I couldn’t find what the end goal was.  My guess was to stop calling it beef or meat because they believe we are being duped by a big company.

In response, Taco Bell has launched quite the campaign to discredit the lawyers involved.  They have taken ads out in every major paper all over the States saying “Thank You For Suing Us’.  I admire that they haven’t hid or made excuses.  They have made their stand and picked this as their hill to die on.  Below is Taco President and CEO Greg Creed’s response to the allegations.

Its tough to pick sides on this one.  On the one hand you have a money and fame hungry lawyer looking to make a name for himself and on the other a Gazillion dollar corporation that clearly sells less than healthy foods that seems to be covering their ass.  But who knows.  There doesn’t really seem to be any spin doctoring or excuses.  You gotta love when a company stands up and says “you want to know…here you go”.

Now let me be clear here, I am not defending Fast Food but I do fancy myself a critical thinker.  What I find troubling is that there doesn’t seem to be any test results or proof of the 35%.  When the hell did we start trusting lawyers in a he said she said case?  I couldn’t find anyone that had a red flag raised - including myself (mine came later when I sat down and did some reading).  Pretty much everyone turned up their nose and said they knew TB was crap all along.  My guess is that they went to Wendy’s that week. 

So is the Bell good or bad?  Make your own choices.  Always do your homework guys because there is a lot more than fake beef floating around out there.

What are your thoughts?  My final one is that if we can’t even get people to stop smoking or drinking and driving a “call out” isn’t going to get people to stop eating fast food.  Money better spent elsewhere?  I think so.

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