So hey , along with chicken nuggets not being made of white meat but mashed up chicken guts , Taco Bell meat isn’t really meat ! Big surprise huh?

So here you go , pictured above is what taco bells crunchy tacos are made with , “Taco Meat Filling”. This taco meat filing contains a number of spices and fibers that resemble actual ground beef and help keep Taco Bells prices incredibly low. And yes it does still contain meat , well if you call 36% of meat , meat.

A new class action lawsuit has been raged against Taco Bell by an Alabama law firm that’s claiming the fast food restaurant is falsely advertising this “meat filling” product to their customers. The lawsuit isn’t even for money – but for a correction on behalf of the retsrannt and to not advertise it as beef because technically it is not !

According to the USDA (Jeezy anybody?) beef  is officially defined “flesh of cattle” , and tacos main ingredient , ground beef , is defined as:

Chopped fresh and/or frozen beef with or without seasoning and without the addition of beef fat as such, shall not contain more than 30 percent fat, and shall not contain added water, phosphates, binders, or extenders.

So straight from the horses , or should I say Cows , mouth – OFFICIALLY this isn’t even meat . Hey and since when did meat become a percentage? I feel cheated already.

The issue here is not that they cannot sell this product or that it’s not ethical or contains poison of some sort – just that all customers deserve to know exactly what is going into their bodies and what they are eating. If you advertise a crunchy beefy taco – shouldnt you get a crunchy BEEFy taco? False advertising is not cool because as consumers and customers we deserve to know what we are eating and make an education choice.

Taco Bell recently barked back at the lawsuit issuing this official statement:

TACO BELL STATEMENT REGARDING CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT

‘At Taco Bell, we buy our beef from the same trusted brands you find in the supermarket, like Tyson Foods. We start with 100 percent USDA-inspected beef. Then we simmer it in our proprietary blend of seasonings and spices to give our seasoned beef its signature Taco Bell taste and texture. We are proud of the quality of our beef and identify all the seasoning and spice ingredients on our website. Unfortunately, the lawyers in this case elected to sue first and ask questions later — and got their “facts” absolutely wrong. We plan to take legal action for the false statements being made about our food.’

Greg Creed
President and Chief Concept Officer
Taco Bell Corp

So what do you think? Will this make you still have the urge to pull into to Taco Bell for forthmeal? Or how about just option for the CinniTwists until we learn they are actually fried pig skin with cinnimon coating?

Thanks to LA Times and Gizmodo for covering the story.