The_Legend

I was wondering whatever happened to the dog on their commercials.

The_Legend

I was at a petstore and one selling point was the dog was USDA approved, I looked at the puppy and informed him he has been certified as edible by the government.

I feel like USDA approved doesnt really mean all that much.

Smd75

adscrub

Rusted

Bobg

asherchang2

SayAhh

No one seems to get upset at the all white meat chicken nuggets which amount to the company bleaching all the neck and beak parts until its a fine white mush.

No one should expect Taco Bell meat to be a high grade. Nor any other processed patty for that matter. Either eat it, or don't.

Scuba Steve

yes... this is like asking what grade of tobacco your cigarettes are made of. it's pointless.

yesteryear

flipx

I love taco bell.

Its all about fire sauce. poor that fire sauce on and you wont be able to taste anything else.

soldstatic

evilhapposai

awolcfh5150

TheNewDecider

limiter

ericole

And the taser story is also a clever fake from snopes."

Snopes is not always right. I saw the Tom Green dressed as hitler episode on mtv the one and only time it aired. Tryed to find it the other day and was directed to an inaccurate snopes entry.

Afreeman64

Afreeman64

HELLO! ITS NOT APRIL FOOLS!

These prank news stories you keep posting are bullshit:

Taco Bell doesn't use Grade D beef because there is no such thing (see www.snopes.com)

And the taser story is also a clever fake from snopes.

Get on the ball, dudes. You've been duped TWICE today.

tevetorbes

ivanthemute

randomizer9

As other people have stated, there is no "Grade D." There are maturity classifications that use the letters A, B, C, D, and E, but they merely refer to the age of the animal. Unless you plan on only eating ground veal for your tacos, you sure as heck don't want "A" meat. Regarding the actual QUALITY, there has never been any sort of letter-grading system in the United States for the quality of safety of meat, and everything is classified via the well-known Prime/Choice/Select/etc system.

There is no "Grade D but edible," and if you repeat that BS to make yourself seem superior for being a vegetarian or for not eating at Taco Bell, you can kindly go suck on a lemon.

rmz

better than paying $8 on a failing economy for a "healthy" meal.

Zaos

Mike - "COW!!?!

Consumerist - "PIG!!?!"

Bell - "Noooo think smaller, more legs..."

mike19707890

waggss78

harryhoody

VnlaThndr775

jeffjohnvol

Its like asking what grade of meat hot dogs are made of, because pig snout doesn't have a grade.

jeffjohnvol

Taco Bell must have just started getting meat in cans, it used to be big plastic steamer bags.

Jaysyn

ThunderRoad

tdarkdz

tdarkdz

tdarkdz

Confectioners glaze is my favorite, used in candy and medication.

chrisjames

Metropolis

Here is a fact for ya. You can eat almost anything! Even poisons in small amounts. Your body processes protein without concerns of it's origin. I grew up in a country home. After watching my parents both cook and eat Souse Meat (aka head cheese [en.wikipedia.org] ) I think you can eat anything. I have eaten quiet a long list of animals and animal parts.

OnceWasCool

Devidence

Also, you don't want to know what the "green sauce" is either

Mike_Hawk

blackmage439

StickyPurpleCat

ClankBoomSteam

SnoochieBoochies

synergy

sprocket79

catastrophegirl

[meat.tamu.edu]

classification D: 72-96 months

catastrophegirl

We never "cooked" anything at that resturaunt. Everything was premade or powdered. Beans were dehydrated and reconstituted.

The only thing fried in he store were the taco salad shells and the cinnimon desert crisps. They did that in the morning and had the frier turned off before we opened for business.

That place was grease free and clean. You could eat off the floors there. not like "Jack in the Box" where you took your life in your hands eating there.

XianZomby

tape

GastonPlatypus

iMike

jaewon223

dantsea

Eh, I love Taco Bell anyway.

Juice Box Hero

Blue387

Major-General

The beef quality grades are Prime, Choice, Select, Standard, Commercial, Utility, Cutter and Canner. Quality grading is voluntary, not all carcasses are quality graded.

WayneK2

pigeonpenelope

Guess you didn't finish logic class. Just because they recalled more tainted meat doesn't mean there was more tainted meat. It just means they were paying attention more.

And another thing, ground beef with e-coli isn't tainted meat. E-coli lives in the intestine, it helps with digestion. If you grind up an entire animal, sometimes intestines are part of "the entire animal", so the e-coli gets spread throughout. That's why you're supposed to cook ground meats to a certain temperature.

Lastly, who goes looking for the quality of the meat at Taco Bell? Tacos are 79 cents. Figure it out yourself, Sherlock.

Decaye

ceejeemcbeegee

Did you ever have guac/sour cream fights? they were the best :-X

nerdette314159

soapdish

Next, it comes in large plastic bags, just ready to be "cooked". By cooked, I mean poured into steam/hot water heated chafing dishes. Oftentimes we would find casings or live bugs in the bag. We were told to just pick them out.

Now lets talk about the tacos... things like the sour cream or cheese (at that time) didn't need to be refrigerated for some strange reason. Plus, sour cream caulking gun was rarely, if ever, washed. Once empty we would load it up with more Sour Cream. So towards the end could be 4 week old never refrigerated sour cream with the new near the top. You might get an urge to clean the nozzle off with rag. But the only rags we had were table rags. I got written off because I dared to clean out the gun with clean paper towels. My manager was peeved because I didn't use a dish rag, and my protestation that that rag had been wiping down counters fell on deaf ears.

I've worked in several restaurants, and TB was BY FAR the dirtiest, most unsanitary one of them all.

ceejeemcbeegee

Juggernaut

Breach

katylostherart

The questions always rotate around the safety/fitness for consumption of Taco Bell meat. There's no danger at all.

InfiniTrent

InfiniTrent: Grades of Beef are here.
Nice try, though.

Mr. Gunn

The store was out of hot sauce, and I found that I could barely stomach their food un-slathered in multiple packets of sauce. Apparently, I was just a fan of their sauce, and didn't have a clue as to what their food 'tasted' like. Pretty much stopped eating there after that.

ludwigk

[www.phonelosers.org]

crazypants

Sheeze, this is news?

whydidnt

[www.snopes.com]

InfiniTrent

adscrub

cortana

Beef producers can pay extra to have their beef graded for quality (again, not a safety measure).

Taco Bell meat may be low quality in terms of fat content, and where it comes from in the cow, but by no means is it any less safe than any other beef.

InfiniTrent

nerdette314159

NOTHING WAS MARKED GRADE XYZBBQOMFGWTF. It just said "ground beef". I do remember someone who worked there saying something about a 'filler' (oatmeal/soy were frequently spoken of) but no one ever confirmed/denied.

The steak is real steak, just low grade/quality, but still approved.

As far as quality goes, everything is pretty fresh/good quality, except the meat was frozen (precooked) in bags (and the meat was heated/recooked in said bags). The water from said boilers were rarely cleaned, and sometimes there would be holes in the bags of meat to be boiled (shipping/handling/opening?) and the gross nasty water would get into the meat.

I threw out the meat that had been infiltrated by the gross nasty water, and I was yelled at. I never had meat duty again.

Sorry, didn't realize I went off on semi-unrelated tangent.

nerdette314159

Is it really any different than what goes on in the back room of just about every restaurant? Explain.

youbastid

MrBill38

Ever.

ceejeemcbeegee

womynist

"I had a friend who worked at taco bell. He said the bags came marked "Grade F, but edible"

Nice try but there is no such thing as Grade F beef. Or Grade D, C, B, or A. Either you or your friend made that up.

[www.snopes.com]

AmericaTheBrave

Instead of Grade D, don't you mean "degraded?"

MyPetFly

RDAC

aka Bitter

What's next? Complaining that a mexican pizza isn't really how they eat pizza in Mexico?

SomeoneGNU

TheRealAbsurdist

zjgz

I am not so sure about that. There have been 33 million pounds of e-coli tainted meat recalled in 2007. Compare that to 156,235 pounds in 2006. Something is going on that is causing this rise in contaminated meat. You have young children who ate the meat with kidney failure destined for a lifetime of dialysis and certain early death. A 69 cent taco isn't worth that.

Isabelle15

Greasy Thumb Guzik

(Homer: Mmmm, snouts.)

Mike_

When he asked what it really was, the employee said it was oatmeal.

This made sense, since he was allergic to oatmeal.

Atsumi

Its the "burger fur" you have to watch out for!

forgottenpassword

shakakan

#2 If tacobell were to answer his question and tell him what grade of beef they use would he even know what the hell they were talking about.

#3 Dude it's tacobell who the hell cares.

trk182

laserjobs

The various kinds of meat served at Taco Bell basically come frozen in sealed plastic bags and is submerged for around 30 minutes in a machine that keeps water hot in order to heat the meat (and nacho cheese) to serving temperature (it is then placed in a metal pan on a steam table for use in assembling various menu items). The store I worked at never cleaned out the water machine (they just changed the water once a week), so the inside of the machine was completely coated with a layer of gunk from occasional bags that would get punctured before or while heating in the machine. I was one of the few employees at the store who would immediately throw away entire bags of meat that had become punctured, exposing the meat to the filthy water, as I found it personally disgusting.

I also wonder if the grade of plastic used for the meat is safe for exposure to hot water, as I've read that some aren't.

HunterZ

mcjake

Buuuut, the FDA is overextended and underfunded, and I'm not sure if its oversight has any teeth, and clearly, plenty of tainted meat has left US packing plants. Plus, meat's nation of origin is simply irrelevant if you factor in the different types of farms and plants. A mega-plant that ships out frozen patties is probably going to have sketchier meat, than say, a butcher who picks his own meats and has a hand grinder.

Which is to say, comparing meat by countries is kinda stupid.

spinachdip

Lambasted

However... who cares what grade beef it is when it's ground beef? Of course you use the lower grade beef for grinding - that's because no one will be able to tell whether or not the meat was tender once it's been completely decimated.

samurailynn

rmz

[en.wikipedia.org]

[www.imdb.com]

bohemian

Milstar

[en.wikibooks.org]

roshambo

el_smurfo

Really?

Ok........

celticgina

They just put Mexicans into a meat grinder. True story.

Moosehawk

Still the only restaurant where I can get full on $2.

stinerman

44 in a Row

spinachdip

Authentic tacos from Mexico, I don't know.

Mills

And what is up with the recording to throw away "bad cheese". What bad cheese. Were they going to tell anyone about that or only those who call that number get this information. They do sell packaged Taco Bell cheese in the supermarkets. It would be nice if people knew what cheese was bad.

And USDA inspected means the same as FDA approved. Absolutely nothing. Actually it means that if enough people get sick and die we will investigate ... maybe... and issue a recall ...maybe.

I am a bit of an extremist but I have had food poisoning and I will tell you death is welcome. It is like living in hell. No flu or any non chronic illness that you would regularly experience comes close.

Isabelle15

Let me get this straight.... you are comparing US slaughterhouse conditions to mexican ones? LOL! I'll take my chances with US slaughterhouse conditions thankyou very much! Because no matter how bad the US ones are.... the mexican ones MUST be worse!

forgottenpassword

I wouldn't be so sure about that bet. You seen the conditions in American slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants (not to mention the factory farms where the beef is raised)?

spinachdip

youbastid

Ignorance IS bliss!

Whatever it is I bet its STILL better/safer than authentic tacos you get in mexico.

forgottenpassword

Will you guys reprint my letter about how Tootsie won't send me a free Tootsie pop for my star wrapper.

tande

USDA grading means the meat is-at the very least-fit for consumption.

Given the prices at Taco Bell and a guess at what the meat is graded, what do you think?

CaliforniaCajun

CaliforniaCajun

rubinow

Corydon

[www.fsis.usda.gov]

i don't see a A B C grading standard there

chartrule

The older the cow, the tougher the meat will be, so it's no surprise that these animals end up as ground beef.

Still, it's nothing to do with the safety of the meat, just how tender it is (and frankly, using Prime beef for ground meat would be a waste).

Corydon

Which type of the following does the company use?

1. USDA Prime
2. USDA Choice
3. USDA Select
4. USDA Standard
5. USDA Commercial
6. USDA Utility
7. USDA Cutter
8. USDA Canner

Respond or I will not eat there again.

Consumer9

ConsumptionJunkie

slowinthefastlane

scoli83

bsalamon

tstephen

GothGirl

scoli83

That was basically the staple of my high-school diet, chili cheese and bean burritos.

thefezman

tweemo

Bladefist

Jottle

Just to clarify, you probably mean USDA approved. Most beef that would receive a grade below "select" is never actually graded to begin with; nobody's ever going to advertise that their beef is "commercial"-grade, so it's not worth the money to have it graded.

44 in a Row

The grade is simply based on the amount of intramuscle fat and marbling distribution in the meat. The higher the grade, the more intramuscle fat, and the greater the marbling. Both of these affect the amount of flavor the cooked meat will have. Steaks should be USDA Prime or USDA Choice. The meat that Taco Bell uses is probably USAD Commercial. However, this does not mean that the meat is less healthy than better grades, it simply means the meat has less fat and less marbling.

Taco Bell mixes its meat into a sauce that gives it flavor. What would be the point of using a fattier cut of beef if you are simply going to pour it into sauce?

As long as Taco Bell uses USDA graded beef, regardless of the grade it receives, I'm happy.

scoli83

Gann

lostalaska

Bladefist

Prime
Choice
Select
Standard
Commercial
Utility
Cutter
Canner

Prime is generally only used by higher end restaurants. Choice and Select is found in butcher shops. House brand meat in supermarkets is generally Standard or Commercial grade.

Utility, Cutter and Canner are almost never sold at retail and are used to make ground or processed meat products.

We can pretty much guess which grades taco bell uses.

That being said, grades reflect the tenderness, juiciness and flavor of the meat and nothing else. Lesser grades are no less healthy or safe than higher grades.

Even if Taco Bell were to use USDA Prime beef in it's tacos, due to the cooking techniques and flavorings, you'd never be able to tell the difference.

cheviot

FilthyHarry

Based on rising costs,if they actually used a decent grade of beef those chili-cheese things should cost like $2.25 by now.

redpeppers20xx

Oryx

plustax

Yes, I have been a vegetarian for about 6 years now.

Oryx

TACO BELL BEEF IS MADE OF PEOPLE!!!
OH,THE HUMANITY!!

Seriously,I don't think I WANT to know..

Megatenist

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm yo queiro perro

BugMeNot2

Also, there's no letter-grading.

[en.wikipedia.org]

44 in a Row

Source: USDA Fact Sheet.

[www.fsis.usda.gov]

How is Beef Inspected?
Inspection is mandatory; grading is voluntary, and a plant pays to have its meat graded. USDA-graded beef sold at the retail level is Prime, Choice, and Select. Lower grades (Standard, Commercial, Utility, Cutter, and Canner) are mainly ground or used in processed meat products. Retail stores may use other terms which must be different from USDA grades.

Lucky225

strife1012

TechnoDestructo

crunchtime2k

Any relation to Rusty Shackleford? ;)

dogmaratt

djanes1

B

That doesn't mean we shouldn't have some sort of information about the source, quality and handling of said beef.

bohemian

Coder4Life

Coder4Life

Eh, don't complain about the phone number, it's the same, now the desire not to answer is insteresting, but the phone number should be a non-issue

Veeber

SpdRacer

I was told they use Grade E meat whatever that means. He said it was marked on the packages of meat they received and he would never eat from there once he started working there.

parad0x360