Taco Bell sued

JoelKatz said:
Right, but is it reasonable to assume seasonings, water, and texture modifiers comprise 12% of seasoned ground beef taco filling? And the answer is ... yes, it obviously is. Anyone who made a beef filling will tell you that they're typically 85-95% ground beef.
Click to expand...

According to the regulations this is 2 different products, not one. So your argument is based on made up stuff. Just saying.
 
gnome said:
I think the standard is higher than whether a customer feels deceived. Probably subject to local variations, but in my non-lawyer understanding, it would have to do with whether TB could foresee a reasonable person being misled by their advertising. Not "anyone".
Click to expand...

From my understanding if the lawsuit proceeds as a class action they'll have to do surveys to establish what the average person believes.

I think they will be hard pressed to find anyone that believes what Taco Bell serves is "ground beef". I'm honestly not sure how that would play out in court.
 
Correct me if I am wrong, but essentially this is the gist of the issue.

Under USDA regs, the minimum percentage of beef meat in a product allowed to be called “ground beef” is 40%. The remaining 6-% can be fat, extenders, whatever.

Let’s call that product “Ground Beef A.”

I can tell people that I start with 100% “Ground Beef A” to make my taco filling, to which I then add flavorings, fillers and water so that the final percentages in my taco filling are 88% “Ground Beef A” and 12% seasonings. I call this mixture “Seasoned Ground Beef.”

However, the percent of total beef meet in the new product is now 88% of the original 40%, or 35.2% beef meat.

So the product known as “Seasoned Ground Beef” does not meet the USDA regulations to be labeled as a ground beef product if it is sold under certain conditions.

If you have three products, with the only difference between them being the type of filling (i.e. one chicken, one steak, and one “Seasoned ground beef”) the type of filling is a distinct and separate ingredient, prepared and handled as a distinct individual separate ingredient.

---
I have to come down on the side that says that the practice is deceptive.

Of course the simple solution to the problem would be for Taco Bell to switch to a base beef mixture that is 46% beef meat. Then the final percentage of beef in the taco filing would be exactly 40%.
 
Alferd_Packer said:
Correct me if I am wrong, but essentially this is the gist of the issue.

Under USDA regs, the minimum percentage of beef meat in a product allowed to be called “ground beef” is 40%. The remaining 6-% can be fat, extenders, whatever.

Let’s call that product “Ground Beef A.”

I can tell people that I start with 100% “Ground Beef A” to make my taco filling, to which I then add flavorings, fillers and water so that the final percentages in my taco filling are 88% “Ground Beef A” and 12% seasonings. I call this mixture “Seasoned Ground Beef.”

However, the percent of total beef meet in the new product is now 88% of the original 40%, or 35.2% beef meat.

So the product known as “Seasoned Ground Beef” does not meet the USDA regulations to be labeled as a ground beef product if it is sold under certain conditions.

If you have three products, with the only difference between them being the type of filling (i.e. one chicken, one steak, and one “Seasoned ground beef”) the type of filling is a distinct and separate ingredient, prepared and handled as a distinct individual separate ingredient.

---
I have to come down on the side that says that the practice is deceptive.

Of course the simple solution to the problem would be for Taco Bell to switch to a base beef mixture that is 46% beef meat. Then the final percentage of beef in the taco filing would be exactly 40%.
Click to expand...

Not exactly.

The percentage of meat in "taco filling" is a minimum of 40%. "ground beef" has a minimum of 70% "meat" and 30% "fat", and can contain seasoning and salt in it's raw form. It is essentially 100% "beef".
Taco Bell claims their "seasoned ground beef" contains 88% "beef" and 12% "seasonings". The lawsuit claims the actual content of "beef" in their "taco filling" or "seasoned ground beef" is only 36%.

Tacos shouldn't be this complicated. :boggled:
 
3bodyproblem said:
According to the regulations this is 2 different products, not one. So your argument is based on made up stuff. Just saying.
Click to expand...
Huh? The regulations apply to the covered products. There are regulations for taco fillings which apply since this is a taco filling. There are regulations for things labeled "ground beef" which do not apply since this is not labeled as "ground beef". There are also general principles of fraud and deception which always apply.

The regulations simply don't work the way you think they do at all.
 
Alferd_Packer said:
That's why I only eat at real taqurias.
Click to expand...

That's my point really, if I go to Mexican Town and order a dozen tacos they come with "seasoned ground beef". If I go to Taco Bell and order a dozen tacos they come with "seasoned ground beef". And yet the ones from Taco Bell are distinctly different. There should be some way of being able to distinguish what Taco Bell sells and what you would get at a taqurias without a lab report.
 
3bodyproblem said:
That's my point really, if I go to Mexican Town and order a dozen tacos they come with "seasoned ground beef". If I go to Taco Bell and order a dozen tacos they come with "seasoned ground beef". And yet the ones from Taco Bell are distinctly different. There should be some way of being able to distinguish what Taco Bell sells and what you would get at a taqurias without a lab report.
Click to expand...

There is. It's called the "ingredients list".

By your logic, Taco Bell and Del Taco could not both call their filling "seasoned ground beef" because only one of them counts as "seasoned ground beef" while the other must be something else.

Food preparation simply doesn't work that way.


A reasonable person would expect that "seasoned ground beef" has had ingredients added to it reducing it's beef content from 100%. 88% beef is hardly an unreasonable amount of beef content to expect out of any kind of ground beef dish. Hell, I was surprised that beef constituted that high a percentage of the mix, and I eat Taco Bell beef tacos at least once a week on average.

If you look at the breakdown that Skeptichick posted with regards to adding seasoning and water to a 1 lb package of ground beef, just as you would do in your own home on taco night (traditionally in my family, it was Monday night - does that mean anyone who has taco night any other night of the week is a blasphemer?), we find that adding seasoning and water readily decreases the beef content of the taco meat to approximately the same levels as Taco Bell's meat - and that's without the need to keep the meat warm and moist for longer than 30mins or so.
 
Last edited:
BobTheDonkey said:
There is. It's called the "ingredients list".
Click to expand...

The ingredients list isn't given in the advertisements.

BobTheDonkey said:
A reasonable person would expect that "seasoned ground beef" has had ingredients added to it reducing it's beef content from 100%.
Click to expand...

No, not an appreciable amount.

BobTheDonkey said:
88% beef is hardly an unreasonable amount of beef content to expect out of any kind of ground beef dish. Hell, I was surprised that beef constituted that high a percentage of the mix, and I eat Taco Bell beef tacos at least once a week on average.
Click to expand...

So was I. 36% seems way too low, if I had to guess I would have guessed about 60%.

BobTheDonkey said:
If you look at the breakdown that Skeptichick posted with regards to adding seasoning and water to a 1 lb package of ground beef, just as you would do in your own home on taco night (traditionally in my family, it was Monday night - does that mean anyone who has taco night any other night of the week is a blasphemer?), we find that adding seasoning and water readily decreases the beef content of the taco meat to approximately the same levels as Taco Bell's meat - and that's without the need to keep the meat warm and moist for longer than 30mins or so.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, I'd really have to see how it's prepared. You can't get that light brown "coffee grounds" texture with normal ground beef, that's why I suspect it's not "ground beef". Nobody would consider a hotdog "ground beef", what is there about this taco filling that makes it any different?
 
JoelKatz said:
So you're blaming Taco Bell because people didn't realize its taco filling was taco filling? Seriously? That is as crazy as the lady who sued because "crunch berries" have no actual berries. Context matters. Taco Bell described its taco filling as "seasoned ground beef" taco filling.
Click to expand...

Sigh...every case is unique. Pointing out a case that went a certain way is useless because it doesn't apply to this case.

I will say that the case in question was brought under the same law (pretty sure). It was dismissed - never got to trial. If you want to compare them, we can.

The judge said that there's no such thing as a crunchberry. It's a fanciful name for the cereal, not one of the components.

The picture on the box shows cereal balls that looking nothing like fruit.

By contrast, the product is a taco, and it's said to contain seasoned ground beef. You can buy seasoned ground beef in the grocery store, and when you do, it won't contain oat products.

The picture looks like seasoned ground beef. It's impossible to visually distinguish the oats from the meat.
 
UncaYimmy said:
Sigh...every case is unique. Pointing out a case that went a certain way is useless because it doesn't apply to this case.

I will say that the case in question was brought under the same law (pretty sure). It was dismissed - never got to trial. If you want to compare them, we can.

The judge said that there's no such thing as a crunchberry. It's a fanciful name for the cereal, not one of the components.

The picture on the box shows cereal balls that looking nothing like fruit.

By contrast, the product is a taco, and it's said to contain seasoned ground beef. You can buy seasoned ground beef in the grocery store, and when you do, it won't contain oat products.

The picture looks like seasoned ground beef. It's impossible to visually distinguish the oats from the meat.
Click to expand...

*sigh* And if I walk into one steakhouse, the steak served there will be seasoned differently from steak served at a different steakhouse. Should one or the other not be able to list their steak as seasoned or grilled or whatever because it's not cooked in precisely the same manner with precisely the same ingredients as every other restaurant? That would be absurd, just as your argument with regards to what manner any other restaurant/store/person uses to prepare their taco meat is absurd.
 
3bodyproblem said:
Maybe you should enlighten me, how do I think the regulations work?
Click to expand...
You think that the specific regulations (for taco filling or for ground beef) somehow affect or inform the analysis for whether consumers have been mislead or not. When in fact they are completely separate requirements that have nothing to do with each other.

There are two very separate tests:

1) Did the product violate any specific labeling or content regulations?

2) Does the product labeling mislead consumers in a material way?

You constantly take analysis that only applies to one and apply it to the other.

For example, the specific labeling requirements for ground beef prohibit the addition of water. So if they applied at all in any way, Taco Bell would be violating them simply by adding water to their filling. Unless you want to defend that position, the only alternative is that those specific labeling requirements don't apply at all. This is binary -- they do or they don't. It's called "ground beef" or it's not.
 
UncaYimmy said:
By contrast, the product is a taco, and it's said to contain seasoned ground beef.
Click to expand...
The taco filling is described as a seasoned ground beef taco filling, which it is.

You can buy seasoned ground beef in the grocery store, and when you do, it won't contain oat products.
Click to expand...
If it was a taco filling, while it might not contain oat products, it would be about the same percentage beef as Taco Bell's filling is, assuming their 88% figure is accurate. So I don't see how describing it as "seasoned ground beef" can be misleading. Taco Bell makes their taco filling substantially the way everyone does. Though personally I use maltodextrin instead of oats, it's not for any quality reason. If I could texture to oats as Taco Bell does, the oats would likely be better.

The picture looks like seasoned ground beef. It's impossible to visually distinguish the oats from the meat.
Click to expand...
If I made you a taco filling, I doubt you could tell the texture modifiers from the meat either. Everyone makes ground beef taco fillings this way. Otherwise, it's mushy and tastes like baby food.
 
JoelKatz said:
You think that the specific regulations (for taco filling or for ground beef) somehow affect or inform the analysis for whether consumers have been mislead or not. When in fact they are completely separate requirements that have nothing to do with each other.

There are two very separate tests:

1) Did the product violate any specific labeling or content regulations?

2) Does the product labeling mislead consumers in a material way?

You constantly take analysis that only applies to one and apply it to the other.

For example, the specific labeling requirements for ground beef prohibit the addition of water. So if they applied at all in any way, Taco Bell would be violating them simply by adding water to their filling. Unless you want to defend that position, the only alternative is that those specific labeling requirements don't apply at all. This is binary -- they do or they don't. It's called "ground beef" or it's not.
Click to expand...

Sort of. It's not whether it's called ground beef or not, it's how it's sold to the consumer. The meat is not sold as ground beef so the labeling rules of the USDA do not apply. The Tacos are marketed as "containing seasoned ground beef" which is true, and not, in fact, misleading.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom