America’s Disgrace: The Truth about Taco Bell

Today, Taco Bell owns 5,600 locations all over the country and 283 more around the world. They are one of the top selling fast-food franchises with 1.1 million tacos sold every day, a $8 billion yearly revenue, and 15,000 newly hired employees as of 2012.

How did Mexican cuisine became so popular and profitable in this country—where until recently, most things Mexican were generally unpopular and unprofitable?

Mitla, the first authentic Mexican-food restaurant in California, opened in 1934. Its owners at that time, Vicente and Lucía Montaño brought with them a true Mexican-American recipe of “tacos dorados” (hard tacos, or crunchy tacos). They are cooked with carne molida, “golden” tortillas, fried to order and folded around a spicy compressed wedge of ground beef, blanketed with iceberg lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and shredded cheddar. This specialty very closely resembles the taco served to more than 36 million customers every week at 5,600 Taco Bell locations in the United States.

Coincidence? I think not.

In 1950, one Glen Bell, an entrepreneur possessed by envy of the McDonald brothers’ success who had just opened their first restaurant, opened a burger stand across the street from Mitla. Mr. Bell ate often at Mitla and watched long lines form at its walk-up window; later, having persuaded the Montaños to show him how the tacos were made, he experimented after hours with a tool that would streamline the process of frying tortillas.

He started serving his own tacos in 1951, and the business went through several name changes before starting as Taco Bell in 1962. Now, at Mitla, the lines are gone; only the brown vinyl booths and the lunch regulars remain; while on the Taco Bell’s website, Mr. Bell is cited as the creator of the “fast-food crunchy taco.”

But over the years the taco that once was resembling to the original served in Mitla, has now evolved to be corporate processed food mixed with chemicals and animal byproducts.

In 2011, a law firm in Alabama sued Taco Bell for false advertising after learning that only 36% of what the food chain calls “beef” is actual cow flesh. The remaining 64% includes water, isolated oat product, wheat, soy lecithin, maltodextrin, autolyzed yeast  extract, and many others. That same year, the Doritos Locos Tacos were introduced to the market, which is a taco wrapped in a humongous shell-shaped Dorito chip. But the obscenity of this taco is not only in the “beef” Taco Bell is very famous for, it’s in the Dorito chip.

Featuring more than 100 ingredients, the Dorito Locos Tacos include chemicals so dangerous they are even banned in other countries:  Yellow Dye #5 and #6, and Red Dye #40, which are tied to hyperactivity in children, allergic reactions, and cancer. These dyes were banned in the UK voluntarily. Monosodium Glutamate, which is linked to heart problems, obesity, eye damage, headaches, fatigue, disorientation, depression, and nerve damage. Monoglycerides and diglycerides, which are linked to heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Carrageenan, which is used as a thickening in many foods, is linked to intestinal disease and has been categorized as a potential carcinogen and was banned by the European Union in infant formula. And finally, genetically modified crops (soy and corn), which have been widely discussed among scientists as potential causatives of sterility and are linked to disruption in the reproductive hormones, damage to the pituitary gland, endometriosis, cancer, and organ failure.

And if the gross amounts of chemicals aren’t enough to scare the hell out of you, it would really help you to know that Taco Bell has been linked to outbreaks of E. coli in 1999 and 2006, and  salmonella in 2011. They’ve tried to enter the Mexican market several times but the locations have been closed almost immediately.  No Mexican wants to eat at Taco Bell! They know better, trust me. Have you ever seen a Mexican eating at a Taco Bell? Luz Maria Anaya, my grandmother and proud Mexican, concludes that “Taco Bell is about as ‘Mexican’ as Panda Express is ‘Chinese’ or Pizza Hut is ‘Italian’”.

With that in your mind, think twice the next time you feel like eating at Taco Bell and don’t. The customers have the power; one by one we can destroy America’s disgrace and allow true Mexican restaurants to flourish in this country.

 

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Anaya, Luz Maria. Interview by Author via Skype. 31 May 2014