Taco Bell sued

[BenBurch]

Yeast extract, trade name Marmite.

"Yeast extract is the common name for various forms of processed yeast products made by extracting the cell contents (removing the cell walls); they are used as food additives or flavourings, or as nutrients for bacterial culture media. They are often used to create savory flavors and umami taste sensations. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is used for umami, but has no flavor. Yeast extract, like MSG, often contains free glutamic acid. Yeast extracts in liquid form can be dried to a light paste or a dry powder. Glutamic acid in yeast extracts are produced from an acid-base fermentation cycle, only found in some yeasts, typically ones bred for use in baking."

 

[BenBurch]

Sources;

Yeast extract; Wikipedia.

Oat fiber;

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/articles/2010/08/label-friendly-meat-shelf-life-solutions.aspx?pg=2

http://www.theingredienthouse.com/common/specs/RightFiber Oat Specification 8-08.pdf

 

[Uncayimmy]

UY -- Are you seriously attempting to argue that adding less than 5% of oats and yeast would act as some sort of significant extension of meat? Really? We're talking about less than an ounce per pound here.

What's the effect on the volume? At what point do you consider it a "significant" extension? What is your basis for it setting the bar at significant?

There is nothing deceptive about what Taco Bell is doing...

Once again, nobody is arguing that what they do is deceptive. The lawsuit basically argues that their marketing claims are misleading. They are most certainly allowed to prepare their food that way. They don't have to intend to be deceitful by calling it seasoned ground beef.

Please answer this simple question: By just looking at the marketing materials, how can a consumer distinguish between a chain that only uses ground beef, traditional seasonings (stuff you'd buy in the seasoning aisle, which doesn't include isolated oat product) and water versus one that includes yeast, isolated oat product, and oats when both advertise them as seasoned ground beef?

So. I say again: To anyone who knows anything about the actual subject at hand,

It seems rather pointless for you to lecture people when it is actually you who does not seem to grasp the subject at hand. This is a case brought under California law, specifically the Consumers Legal Remedies Act. The argument is that the restaurants buy tortillas, "Taco Meat Filling," cheese, and lettuce, assemble it, and advertise it as a tortilla, "seasoned ground beef," cheese and lettuce. The requested remedy is that their advertising reflect more accurately what constitutes a taco.

Taco Bell can most certainly continue to use the same ingredients. There's a reasonable case to be made that their advertising should be changed.

Attempting to argue that Taco Bell is being "deceptive" in some way because of the fact that they use oats and yeast in their seasoning/texturizer, is complete BS. It's not even the subject of the lawsuit, for crying out loud!

You really shouldn't cry out loud when you're wrong. The lawsuit quite clearly centers on the ingredients. I'm looking at it right now, and your comments make no sense.

The subject of the lawsuit is that there is a problem with the RATIO of seasoning/texturizer to meat. And those claiming it have offered NO evidence. Taco Bell, however, has come forward with full ingredient lists, and even public statements outlining exactly what they do, and why. And what they make there, in their factories, isn't very different at all from what the "average person" makes at home.

I don't recall seeing the word ratio used. The lawsuit says one of the points is whether it contains "seasoned beef" or "taco meat filling." They argue that there is a "substantial" amount of ingredients that are neither meat nor seasoning. It doesn't matter if this is common practice or not because the practice is not in question. The issue is whether it should be called taco meat filling in their advertising like they do internally. And it really doesn't matter if other restaurants call it the same thing because ultimately this ruling would affect them (in California only, that is).

I'm willing to bet that the case does not get tossed. I think complainant has a pretty good chance of winning, but it's not a lock. I do find it interesting that so many people are okay with it being called "seasoned beef" instead of "taco meat filling."

 

[Furcifer]

That's not what I said. I didn't speak about putting it in the fridge and reheating it later. I said food sitting in a shallow pan on a steam table tends to dry out, and some water has to be added to it now and then.

Then you don't know what a preservative is. Preservatives don't have anything to do with keeping something moist. You just moved the goal posts.

Steam table. Yes, it does. Not as fast as having the pan on a flame, or on a grill top, but yes, it still dries out.

Boiled meat in a covered dish in a warming tray? No it doesn't. Let's say they do, it isn't a preservative. You're moving the goal posts.

It is 100% ground beef when it is raw. Once it is cooked, and the fat is drained, it is less than 100% ground beef.

lol. You may want to rethink this.

I guess this is where I have a hissy fit and say you earned a spot on my ignore.

 

[Furcifer]

You have it backwards, it is more than 100% ground beef. (Unless you cap the percentage at 100.)

More than? Really.

Exactly, say you started with 3oz of ground beef and the fat drained away leaving 2oz. The concentration of ground beef is:

100 * (Number of ounces ground beef)/(ounces of product) =
100 * 3 / 2 = 150%

You kids and your new math.

In fact, you can take 4 oz of 100% orange juice and 4 oz of 100% apple juice, combine them, boil the result down to 4 oz, and you can call the result either 100% apple juice or 100% orange juice.

That's a disputed issue of fact. Taco Bell claims "Our seasoned beef recipe contains 88% quality USDA-inspected beef and 12% seasonings, spices, water and other ingredients that provide taste, texture and moisture.".

Why not 6000% ground beef? I mean they started with a whole cow right?


You got some unique way of doing math dude.

 

[JoelKatz]

Why not 6000% ground beef? I mean they started with a whole cow right?

Because they removed more than just a dilutant. If you took a whole cow and added lots of water, you could get the percentage down to 50%. If you just follow the math, take a whole cow, and remove lots of water, you will get a percentage over 100%. (What exactly that means is another story but if you run the concentration equation, that's what it will do.)

You got some unique way of doing math dude.

That's the way everyone else does it. You are doing is the strange way, confusing the removal of a dilutant with the removal of product.

When we say something is "100% orange juice", we mean it has the same ration of non-water juice product to juice as natural orange juice does. If it has more, it is greater than 100% orange juice (though we usually don't use numbers greater than 100% because it tends to confuse people, but the math comes out that way). If it has less, it is less than 100% orange juice.

If you take 100% orange juice and remove water, you have over 100% orange juice. If you take 100% orange juice and remove sugars, you have less than 100% orange juice. It matter not just how much you remove but *what* you remove.

 

[Furcifer]

If you take 100% orange juice and remove water, you have over 100% orange juice. If you take 100% orange juice and remove sugars, you have less than 100% orange juice. It matter not just how much you remove but *what* you remove.

Let me get this staight, you're saying cooked ground beef is "concentrated ground beef"?

 

[Arus808]

So does anyone here actually eat taco bell?

before. then I moved to Southbay and found about Del Taco.
Better, cheaper....and a whole lot tastier

^_^

 

[JoelKatz]

Let me get this staight, you're saying cooked ground beef is "concentrated ground beef"?

I don't know that I would use that exact term, but yes, in essence it is. If you take 100% ground beef and remove water (a replaceable dilutant) the concentration is increased. If you, say, replaced that water with wine, you would then have "100% ground beef, with wine". The wine doesn't replace any of the ground beef, just the water.

When you cook ground beef, most of what you lose is water. If you cook, say, 4 ounces of beef and lose 1/2 ounce of water, what you have left is 3-1/2 ounces of cooked ground beef that contains more beef than 4 ounces of raw beef would!

Strange, but true. Like my example of a liquid that can be legally called both '100% apple juice' and '100% orange juice'. (Except for the arguably deceptive implication of those terms that it contains nothing else, of course. I'm just saying the concentrations are 100%.)

The term "100% X" doesn't mean "pure, unadulterated X" in the food business. It just means 100% of the normal concentration of X found in the pure food. Oddly, you can squeeze oranges and if the result contains more water than it "should" the result can generally not be labeled 100% orange juice if you remove and then replace the water. The amount of water required to be returned, by law, is in most cases the amount of water that "should have" been removed, not the amount actually removed. The resulting solution must have the correct brix level for the particular fruit to be called "100% juice".

This makes sense, sort of, if you think about how hard it would be otherwise to figure out how much water should be added back. Companies that sell concentrate want to sell X ounces of orange juice concentrate that is Y% water, so they can't really guarantee any precise particular amount of water has been removed.

 

[Furcifer]

I don't know that I would use that exact term, but yes, in essence it is. If you take 100% ground beef and remove water (a replaceable dilutant) the concentration is increased. If you, say, replaced that water with wine, you would then have "100% ground beef, with wine". The wine doesn't replace any of the ground beef, just the water.

When you cook ground beef, most of what you lose is water. If you cook, say, 4 ounces of beef and lose 1/2 ounce of water, what you have left is 3-1/2 ounces of cooked ground beef that contains more beef than 4 ounces of raw beef would!

Strange, but true. Like my example of a liquid that can be legally called both '100% apple juice' and '100% orange juice'. (Except for the arguably deceptive implication of those terms that it contains nothing else, of course. I'm just saying the concentrations are 100%.)

The term "100% X" doesn't mean "pure, unadulterated X" in the food business. It just means 100% of the normal concentration of X found in the pure food. Oddly, you can squeeze oranges and if the result contains more water than it "should" the result can generally not be labeled 100% orange juice if you remove and then replace the water. The amount of water required to be returned, by law, is in most cases the amount of water that "should have" been removed, not the amount actually removed. The resulting solution must have the correct brix level for the particular fruit to be called "100% juice".

This makes sense, sort of, if you think about how hard it would be otherwise to figure out how much water should be added back. Companies that sell concentrate want to sell X ounces of orange juice concentrate that is Y% water, so they can't really guarantee any precise particular amount of water has been removed.

Sorry I read your post after SB's and was totally confused. You can't cook 100% ground beef and end up with something that isn't 100% ground beef.

To my knowledge, Taco Bell hasn't clarified if the 88/12 is pre-cooked or as it is shipped. The only way it could come close to being 36% meat as lawsuit claims is if the 88/12 is the pre-cooked percentages.

 

[JoelKatz]

You can't cook 100% ground beef and end up with something that isn't 100% ground beef.

Consider this: You take 4 ounces of 100% ground beef. You cook it, and some water is lost. The result is 3-1/2 ounces. You then add wine to bring it back up to 4 ounces. What percentage of ground beef is the result?

If you say anything other than 100%, try this next: You have 4 ounces of cooked 100% ground beef. To ship it more cheaply, you remove 1/2 ounce of water, so you only have to ship 3-1/2 ounces. At the destination, the 1/2 ounce of water removed is returned. Now what percentage ground beef is the result?

Or try this: How can concentrated orange juice ever be used to produce 100% orange juice? You have to add water to it, and then it's going to have some percentage of water, right?

You will similarly get concentrations over 100% if you use calculations like: "With this liquid, I can take X ounces of it and add Y ounces of water and the result is Z% orange juice". For example, if you take 4 ounces of orange juice and reduce it to 2 ounces, adding back 2 ounces gives you 100% orange juice. Adding back 6 ounces gives you 50% orange juice. If you do the math, adding 1 ounce will give you 133% orange juice.

If you take 4 ounces of orange juice and remove 1 ounce of water, and then add X ounces of water back to it, the percentage orange juice is 100 x (3+X) / 4. If you do the math for less than 1 ounce of water, you will get percentages over 100%. (What real world meaning you assign to these percentages is a more subtle question.)

 

[Furcifer]

Consider this: You take 4 ounces of 100% ground beef. You cook it, and some water is lost. The result is 3-1/2 ounces. You then add wine to bring it back up to 4 ounces. What percentage of ground beef is the result?

75% ground beef, but that's not cooked ground beef, that's ground beef soup. Or maybe ground beef in wine gravy.

If you say anything other than 100%, try this next: You have 4 ounces of cooked 100% ground beef. To ship it more cheaply, you remove 1/2 ounce of water, so you only have to ship 3-1/2 ounces. At the destination, the 1/2 ounce of water removed is returned. Now what percentage ground beef is the result?

100% reconstituted ground beef.

Or try this: How can concentrated orange juice ever be used to produce 100% orange juice? You have to add water to it, and then it's going to have some percentage of water, right?

It never does, once it's concentrated you add water to reconstitute it.

You will similarly get concentrations over 100% if you use calculations like: "With this liquid, I can take X ounces of it and add Y ounces of water and the result is Z% orange juice". For example, if you take 4 ounces of orange juice and reduce it to 2 ounces, adding back 2 ounces gives you 100% orange juice. Adding back 6 ounces gives you 50% orange juice. If you do the math, adding 1 ounce will give you 133% orange juice.

No you get 100% reconstituted product.

If you take 4 ounces of orange juice and remove 1 ounce of water, and then add X ounces of water back to it, the percentage orange juice is 100 x (3+X) / 4. If you do the math for less than 1 ounce of water, you will get percentages over 100%. (What real world meaning you assign to these percentages is a more subtle question.)

No you get 100% reconstituted product.

 

[slingblade]

You have it backwards, it is more than 100% ground beef. (Unless you cap the percentage at 100.)

Exactly, say you started with 3oz of ground beef and the fat drained away leaving 2oz. The concentration of ground beef is:

100 * (Number of ounces ground beef)/(ounces of product) =
100 * 3 / 2 = 150%

In fact, you can take 4 oz of 100% orange juice and 4 oz of 100% apple juice, combine them, boil the result down to 4 oz, and you can call the result either 100% apple juice or 100% orange juice.

When you remove a dilutant, the concentration goes up, not down.

Right, but it's now *more* concentrated. All the flavor of 1/4 pound of ground beef is now in less than 1/4 of a pound. However, they can't call it '1/4 pound' if it doesn't weight 1/4 pound.

Here's a simple example. I take 4 oz of 50% orange juice. I remove half the water. I can now call it "100% orange juice", but I can't call it "4 oz".

If 4 oz of 50% orange juice is reduced to 2 oz, the concentration must exceed 50%.

That's a disputed issue of fact. Taco Bell claims "Our seasoned beef recipe contains 88% quality USDA-inspected beef and 12% seasonings, spices, water and other ingredients that provide taste, texture and moisture.".

That's why I'm saying by volume, by weight. The beef is always all beef, because the definition of beef includes the fat content. But cooking renders the fat and removes it from the volume, the weight, of the beef.

When I cook beef and render away some of the fat, the meat that's left is still all beef, but there isn't as much of it after I cook it. I'm pouring some of what's considered part of the beef, the fat, away. If I start with 16 oz of meat and render off 5% of it as fat, I have 95% of the ground beef I began with, by volume. It's still 100% beef by composition, but only 95% of the total weight of the beef I began with.

 

[linusrichard]

There's some weird math going on here. If you take "100% ground beef," and remove something that isn't ground beef, then doesn't that mean that what you started with wasn't really 100% ground beef?

Either the water is a dilutant, in which case the ground beef before the water was removed wasn't 100% ground beef. Or the water is (in at least some sense) "part" of the ground beef, in which case the ground beef remains 100% ground beef after the water is removed.

Consider: If I have six ounces of 100% ground beef before me, and I take a knife and cut it in half and throw half away, do I now have three ounces of 200% ground beef? No, because what I removed was ground beef. Or, if I have six ounces of "100% ground beef" before me, and I remove three ounces of sawdust, pencil shavings, rat droppings, and polystyrene packing peanuts, do I now have three ounces of 200% ground beef? No, because I was lying when I said what I had before was 100% ground beef.

The reason you cap the amount of ground beef content at 100% is because the common-sense way of determining percentage of ground beef content is by starting at 100 and subtracting out anything that isn't ground beef. Arguably, the water in pre-cooked ground beef is (as I said, at least in some sense) "part" of the ground beef, so we don't have to subtract that out, and we can say that's 100% ground beef, pre-cooked. But when we take the water out, nothing non-ground beef enters the ground beef, so it remains at 100%.

JoelKatz's method seems kind of sound the way he explains it. But--and this holds true in all kinds of areas--when seemingly sound methods end up in results contrary to common sense (such as a component making up more than 100% of a substance), you have to go back and recheck.

 

[slingblade]

Then you don't know what a preservative is. Preservatives don't have anything to do with keeping something moist. You just moved the goal posts.

Nope, I was talking about the thickeners, not the preservatives. You said preservatives, and you misspoke when you did so. It's the thickeners that help with the moisture of the finished product as it sits in a steam table.

Boiled meat in a covered dish in a warming tray? No it doesn't. Let's say they do, it isn't a preservative. You're moving the goal posts.

I don't know if they fry or boil the ground beef at Tyson when making the taco meat filling. I know that once that finished product gets to Taco Bell to be served, it isn't boiled. It's reheated, with only enough water added to reconstitute it.

A steam table is a bit more than a "warming tray." Have you ever even been in the kitchen of a restaurant? Hell, have you ever been to a Chinese buffet restaurant? That huge thing they keep all the pans of food in is called a steam table. And every so often, someone adds a little water (or broth, or other liquid) to the pan contents, because they dry out, even if they are covered. The moisture evaporates. The temperature of a steam table doesn't get high enough to boil anything, not even the water that's in the table itself. It's a slower process.

I guess this is where I have a hissy fit and say you earned a spot on my ignore.

Is it really? Well, go ahead, if you simply must. I assure you, I'll manage to get by.

 

[Furcifer]

There's some weird math going on here. If you take "100% ground beef," and remove something that isn't ground beef, then doesn't that mean that what you started with wasn't really 100% ground beef?

Either the water is a dilutant, in which case the ground beef before the water was removed wasn't 100% ground beef. Or the water is (in at least some sense) "part" of the ground beef, in which case the ground beef remains 100% ground beef after the water is removed.

Consider: If I have six ounces of 100% ground beef before me, and I take a knife and cut it in half and throw half away, do I now have three ounces of 200% ground beef? No, because what I removed was ground beef. Or, if I have six ounces of "100% ground beef" before me, and I remove three ounces of sawdust, pencil shavings, rat droppings, and polystyrene packing peanuts, do I now have three ounces of 200% ground beef? No, because I was lying when I said what I had before was 100% ground beef.

The reason you cap the amount of ground beef content at 100% is because the common-sense way of determining percentage of ground beef content is by starting at 100 and subtracting out anything that isn't ground beef. Arguably, the water in pre-cooked ground beef is (as I said, at least in some sense) "part" of the ground beef, so we don't have to subtract that out, and we can say that's 100% ground beef, pre-cooked. But when we take the water out, nothing non-ground beef enters the ground beef, so it remains at 100%.

JoelKatz's method seems kind of sound the way he explains it. But--and this holds true in all kinds of areas--when seemingly sound methods end up in results contrary to common sense (such as a component making up more than 100% of a substance), you have to go back and recheck.

Like I said, use 1-100% cow, take the ground beef, throw away the rest of the cow, 6000% USDA ground beef!

 

[slingblade]

There's some weird math going on here. If you take "100% ground beef," and remove something that isn't ground beef, then doesn't that mean that what you started with wasn't really 100% ground beef?

The "something you removed" was never not ground beef. But it was fat, which is considered part of the total meat content, and it does become liquid during cooking, and it is drained off after cooking. So if it helps to consider that somehow you are taking part of the ground beef and disposing of it after cooking, then look at it that way.

But the meat and the fat together make up the beef content. And some of the fat is discarded after cooking. What's left is still all ground beef, but some of it was removed.

Either the water is a dilutant, in which case the ground beef before the water was removed wasn't 100% ground beef. Or the water is (in at least some sense) "part" of the ground beef, in which case the ground beef remains 100% ground beef after the water is removed.

FAT. There is some moisture, some water, that also comes away during cooking, simply because meat naturally contains some water. But most of what gets removed is fats.

Consider: If I have six ounces of 100% ground beef before me, and I take a knife and cut it in half and throw half away, do I now have three ounces of 200% ground beef? No, because what I removed was ground beef. Or, if I have six ounces of "100% ground beef" before me, and I remove three ounces of sawdust, pencil shavings, rat droppings, and polystyrene packing peanuts, do I now have three ounces of 200% ground beef? No, because I was lying when I said what I had before was 100% ground beef.

Sigh.

If you have six ounces of 100% ground beef before you, and you throw 3 ounces of it away, what's left is still 100% beef, but is no longer 100% of six ounces. It's three ounces of 100% ground beef, but it's 50% of the beef you started with.

The reason you cap the amount of ground beef content at 100% is because the common-sense way of determining percentage of ground beef content is by starting at 100 and subtracting out anything that isn't ground beef. Arguably, the water in pre-cooked ground beef is (as I said, at least in some sense) "part" of the ground beef, so we don't have to subtract that out, and we can say that's 100% ground beef, pre-cooked. But when we take the water out, nothing non-ground beef enters the ground beef, so it remains at 100%.

100% composition, but less than 100% by weight.

People keep missing the "by weight" part. And I don't know why you keep saying water, when I've only ever said fat. What about the fat content? Fat is part of the beef. Getting rid of the fat means you are getting rid of part of the meat by volume, by its weight. And yes, Joel is right that this "concentrates" the beef somewhat. It has to. If your beef fat is considered part of the beef (and it is), then when you render it into a liquid form and drain it off during cooking, you're throwing away part of the beef. What's left is more actual meat and less fat.

Meat that is 100% beef by composition will lose some of its volume during cooking. What's left is still all beef, since you added nothing. But some of the weight has been reduced.

After cooking 100 lbs of 100% beef (70/30), I should end up with some weight reduction. My 100 lbs is now maybe 88 lbs of 100% beef. So I have 88% of my total left, by weight, not by composition.

 

[Furcifer]

Nope, I was talking about the thickeners, not the preservatives. You said preservatives, and you misspoke when you did so. It's the thickeners that help with the moisture of the finished product as it sits in a steam table.

No you did! Look:

Those differences often mean that a restaurant uses more preservatives than I would, and uses at least some binding agents or thickeners in the seasoning mix because it's likely that some water will occasionally have to be added to the mixture being held at temperature in the steam table.

That's why I said "I don't know about preservatives". Anyhow...

I don't know if they fry or boil the ground beef at Tyson when making the taco meat filling. I know that once that finished product gets to Taco Bell to be served, it isn't boiled. It's reheated, with only enough water added to reconstitute it.

It's boiled, and has been for 15 years at least. ETA: in a bag, it comes cooked.

A steam table is a bit more than a "warming tray." Have you ever even been in the kitchen of a restaurant? Hell, have you ever been to a Chinese buffet restaurant? That huge thing they keep all the pans of food in is called a steam table. And every so often, someone adds a little water (or broth, or other liquid) to the pan contents, because they dry out, even if they are covered. The moisture evaporates. The temperature of a steam table doesn't get high enough to boil anything, not even the water that's in the table itself. It's a slower process.

No. I have to put my foot down.

This is a warming tray:

This is what Taco Bell uses to keep the ground beef in once it's been boiled.

The steam tables are for us power engineers to figure out how much energy is in steam at a given temperature and pressure

 

[slingblade]

I mentioned that Taco Bell might need more preservatives in their food, because it sits, both in the restaurant, and in my car on the way home, already cooked.

I mentioned the thickeners in relation to adding water to the product. It's the water we're actually talking about:

Those differences often mean that a restaurant uses more preservatives than I would, and uses at least some binding agents or thickeners in the seasoning mix because it's likely that some water will occasionally have to be added to the mixture being held at temperature in the steam table.

Concentrate on that highlighted part, not yours. My highlight is what I'm talking about in reference to thickeners added to seasonings.

And you can put your foot anywhere you like, but I was just in my local Taco Bell yesterday afternoon, and there was no warming tray there. I could see right into the production area. Part of the set-up was a steam table, not a warming tray on a counter top.

ETA: at the engineering joke.

 

[Furcifer]

And you can put your foot anywhere you like, but I was just in my local Taco Bell yesterday afternoon, and there was no warming tray there. I could see right into the production area. Part of the set-up was a steam table, not a warming tray on a counter top.

You and I are talking about the same thing I believe, you're just using non-standard terminology. That's just a table top version, the ones at Taco Bell a full size gas ones. The pans float in hot water, there is no steam as the water never boils.

Here's a supplier list for Taco Bell equipment, notice the "warming" section:

http://www.hfse.com/submnu/simple%20parts/TACO%20BELL%20SPCE.pdf

These are warming tray parts. You'll notice the steamer, the thing they put everything in at taco bell to moisten the tortilla and melt the cheese (I used to get my veggie mexie melts "steamed twice")

The meat never dries out, the trays are covered and the turn over is rapid. Taco Bell could use ""real ground beef" if they desired and not have a problem with it drying out in the warming trays.