Special T: robogun: Years ago Jack In The Box was caught serving Kangaroo meat in its burgers. I've had kangaroo, to be honest it is difficult to tell the difference from beef.

So a fast food restaurant was caught using kangaroo meat in place of beef. Kangaroo being a much more expensive and rare commodity, having to be flown fresh across the globe instead of beef which can be acquired cheaply from any number of sources. And they did this because... this urban legend wouldn't work otherwise?

Uhm yeah. I've had kangaroo, in fact i've had ground kangaroo, in chili. Possibly the application where you would least be able to tell it from any other kind of meat. And it was still very gamy.

/damn i want some taco bell
//too drunk at this point
///the taco bell in my college town delivered...

portnoyd: SpinStopper: It's called TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein) and it's found in a lot of Mexican-American fast food. Hell, a lot of fast food, period.

That's incredibly wrong. There is no TVP in Taco Bell beef. It would be on the label if that was the case. Check the article. The #1 ingredient in the seasoning is oats. The oats in the seasoning are the bulk. It used to be soy.

This lawsuit likely doesn't have any ground to stand on. Yum Brands has made sure that their advertising is airtight for this very reason. The 36% beef claim by the law firm is likely pulled out of their ass. All food companies have regulatory groups that make sure that they comply to regulations and the CFR.

Look again at the list of ingredii for both. Oats is on the list for possible inclusion in TVP. You'll rarely find TVP listed as such on labels any more - people became wise to that many years ago. Then IQs dropped sharply, and they thought that "oats" sounded more healthy. Etc., etc., etc. ;)

Chimperror2: Dude, it's styled after mexican food. Be thankful it's americanized and has some beef. Authentic mexican is horse, goat, dog, cat, rat and insect. Why do you think it's so spicy? It's to hide all the flavors.

Yep. A number of times that I went to Mexico - usually just south of California - I discovered that flies are an essential ingredient. I witnessed them being stirred vigorously into the "meat" before it was served in a dish ;)

HotSalsaZoot: In the late 80's/early 90's, we still had Del Taco where I live.

I love Del Taco. And that was still the lowest of the low for me in LA. People who lived in LA and ate at Taco Bell were considered mutants. Taco Bell was solely for scoring blow.

Marla Singer's Laundry: Why are there so few "meat in your taco" jokes in this thread? Mostly, it seems to be non-oblique references to actual food. Come on, guys. This is Fark, not OvereatersAnonymous.com

Hipsters have taken over FARK with their pretentious "agendas", pseudo-snarky wit and meme-generators.

/becoming the AOL of snark?

That's just 'Good Business' these days.

I've bought off brand ground beef in a tube that I'd swear had nearly no beef in the stuff, bought some from Walmart, in a tube, that was certainly meat, with enough fat mixed in to grease a roller coaster. (Fat is considered, legally, meat.) The hamburger patties I made shrunk by about 50% and the fry pan started sloshing in grease. There's assorted pre-made burgers out, sold by the box with cool names that remind you of hardwood fires, out door BBQ's, and big, good ol' boy cooks. Quite a few, I've found, taste like if they have any beef in them, it'd take a lab to find it.

Others seem mixed heavily with vegetable products like soy, and some have artificial coloring added.

At least one box of burgers tasted so much unlike beef that I tossed them out.

Ever buy any of those cheap, breaded chicken patties you'll find in the cheap freezer section of discount grocery stores? They're usually packed on a foam tray, which is yellow -- to enhance their coloring. There's chicken in them, but probably less than 50% and I suspect it consists of the parts that even pet food companies won't buy.

They tend to drain a yellow grease when cooked.

So, it's not just Taco Bell cutting back on the beef. After the beef shortage in the 70's, the prices soared and never came back down after the shortage ended. Prices are getting so high that I suspect I'd be better off raising my own cow and having the butcher slaughter it.

Besides, before Taco Bell was Taco Viva, and they turned out a great, tasty product, with tacos twice the size of Taco Bell but they were about 50% more expensive. Taco Bell popped up and undercut their prices by pumping out cheap, small Tacos and the company pretty well folded. Once that happened, then Taco Bell naturally started 'economizing'.

I'm still wondering if Banquet frozen dinner mashed potatoes actually have potatoes in them. Quite often they taste something like machine oil.

Their 'chicken fingers' mystify me because I can't tell the difference between any actual chicken in them and the vegetable coating.

I have my doubts about Burger King 'hash browns', those ground potato nugget thingies that look and smell good when you get them hot and are tasty, but when they cool down, suddenly seem the consistency of old car tires.

Then again, lawyers aren't making enough money these days, so they have to troll for things to sue over. You can notice that on any TV station.

Maybe they ought to start suing the News programs for not really reporting news.