First going after Taco Bell next Kellogg's?

by John A Stefani






Beasley Allen has handled cases involving verdicts and settlements totaling more than $20 billion.

Beasley Allen currently holds U.S. records for largest verdicts/settlements in 4 categories: oil, pharmaceutical drug, environmental settlements and predatory lending. Their website states that they have a national reputation for being at the forefront of Consumer Litigation.

The critics say that Taco Bell's meat filling product would fall below the already generous USDA standard for it to qualify as meat and they say the present standard demands it consist of at least 40 percent meat.

According to the USDA Glossary in the "M" section:

Meat
The flesh of animals used as food including the dressed flesh of cattle, swine, sheep, or goats and other edible animals, except fish, poultry, and wild game animals.

Meat Base
A granular, paste-like product which is shelf-stable primarily because of its high salt content (30-40%).

1. Beef Base - 15% beef or 10.5% cooked beef.
2. Pork Base - 15% pork or 10.5% cooked pork.
3. Ham Base - 18% ham.

In the USDA Glossary in the "B" section, beef is states as being "Meat from full-grown cattle about two years old. “Baby beef” and “calf” are interchangeable terms used to describe young cattle weighing about 700 pounds that have been raised mainly on milk and grass."

Interviewed on KGET.com, Donna Fenton, Cheif Environmental Health Specialist for Kern County Environmental Health Department stated that, "Taco Bells saying its isolated oat products, wheat oats, soy lecithin, malodextrin, anti dusting agent, autolyzed yeast extract modified corn starch and sodium phosphate as well as beef and seasoning with the taco meat filling definition that may still be all allowed."

According to the St Paul Pioneer Press "Experts say similar ingredients are used in many processed foods sold in stores.'

I would really like to see the actual USDA statement with their standards of meat.

I had heard a rumor that once the lawsuit against Taco Bell resolved then, Beasley Allen is going after Kellogg's Keebler products for not having any Elfin Magic in their products.