7 Times Taco Bell Employees Spilled The Tea On Reddit About How The Food Is Prepared

Fast food often gets a bad rap for having dodgy ingredients and even dodgier preparation. Repeated safety violations at individual restaurants, from unsanitary kitchens to employees showing up while very sick, give the majority of the industry a poor image. One of the chains that gets the brunt of the complaints is Taco Bell. People complain that it isn't authentic enough, for example, and that must mean the food is terrible. The chain is also the target of jokes about how the food leads to digestive issues.

The truth is that food can be "inauthentic" and still be tasty, and the jokes about digestive issues are actually based on old racist stereotypes of Mexican food. Nowhere is better to find out what really goes on behind the scenes at Taco Bell than Reddit, where employees, managers, and customers can ask questions and confirm, deny, or clarify what's going on. That's not to say that all Taco Bells are perfect. Like any restaurant chain, individual locations can have problems. But thanks to some cooperative employees, a lot of the mystery about Taco Bell's ingredients and food preparation is gone. Here are seven times Taco Bell employees spilled the tea on Reddit about how the food is prepared.

If you go to a fast food restaurant, there's a very good chance that your food won't look exactly like it does in the glossy ads that the company puts out. Some of that is due to the hot lights in a photography studio melting things or to foods absorbing liquids too quickly. Other times, the problem is that the actual food coming out of a restaurant kitchen isn't put together well at all, due to lack of skill, interest, or time. Some customers have taken to filing lawsuits over the deception, and Taco Bell hasn't been immune.

It's true that some Taco Bell foods can look completely different from what the ads lead you to believe you'll get. A 2014 Consumer Reports investigation compared Taco Bell's Gordita Supreme in its ad and real-life incarnations, and while the ad version looked plump and chock full of beef, the real-life version had a crumpled gordita shell that was barely filled with any ingredients, let alone a lot of ground beef. But one employee wrote on Reddit that they were actually encouraged to try to make the food "as 'photogenic' as possible." That came as a surprise to the Redditor who had asked about food presentation, who then wrote that they never received food that looked remotely close to the ads. But it's nice to know at least some employees do try to make the food look good.

Using oats in ground beef recipes like meatloaf is nothing new; oats and bread crumbs are simple ways to stretch out the meat. But the fact that Taco Bell uses oats in its ground beef surprised more than a few people when the news first broke because not everyone understood why. Was Taco Bell being cheap and trying to use filler?

Luckily, no. According to a former employee, the oats mainly serve to improve texture. They're ground up very fine, resulting in a bunch of tiny but highly absorbent flakes that grab loose grease and prevent it from forming pools. It also does help fill out the meat a little bit. So, instead of overly wet, greasy beef, you end up with beef that's still tender but a little drier and bulkier. The same former employee also noted in another thread that you can make copycat Taco Bell beef with pulverized quick oats. Taco Bell notes that it uses 100% USDA premium beef in its meat filling, but it also says that the beef is then mixed with spices. And if you look up a beef product, like the crunchy taco, on the Taco Bell website, you can see oats are still listed among the ingredients.

Keep in mind that the oats, and thus the beef at Taco Bell, can be a concern for people with celiac disease. Oats themselves don't contain gluten, but they can have cross-contamination from processing facilities.

Have you ever thought that the amount of filling you got was not enough? Maybe you thought the employees were being stingy or that the company was engaging in a little shrinkflation and deception. Usually, that's not the case. According to one assistant general manager, Taco Bell has specific amounts for each ingredient that are supposed to go in each dish. Even the seasoning for the fries has a specific measurement. So, you're likely not being shorted. Instead, you've gotten something where the company has set a limit. The employees have to follow set measurements, which may be smaller than you'd prefer.

The measurements don't always sound exact. For example, while one common measurement is one scoop, a former employee wrote that some use a three-finger pinch instead. (That pinch sounds like it's much bigger than the traditional pinch or dash.) Another employee stated that the measurement for the jalapeño sauce was a Z pattern over a particular section of the tortilla, which could sometimes turn into a straight line if the sauce was running low. Many times, though, the measurements are in ounces and are measured on a scale.

Now you know that the seeming lack of filling or other ingredients has more to do with company-set proportions than employee choice. But sometimes you get an item where the proportions of ingredients are obviously way off, and that makes you start wondering about what the employees were doing when they made your food. Those times likely aren't due to any misbehavior either. Instead, your food was probably made by a new employee who wasn't yet used to using the correct proportions.

Taco Bell usually gives new employees some video training when they first start, although there are anecdotal complaints that some new employees have started in the kitchen immediately. But in general, they have to learn how to make the food on the job. That means that their first few times making each menu item could be a little shaky. Combine that with high turnover at locations where the employees tend to be students, and you end up with a lot of new employees trying to get your order right.

Eventually, the employees get the ingredients right and memorize what goes into each item. However, that brings up another problem: modifications. As one person pointed out, employees develop muscle memory when making the basic recipes, and asking for modifications throws a mental wrench into the process. So if you ask for changes and get something that isn't quite right, be understanding when you ask them to correct the order.

Taco Bell makes it very easy to modify orders. One of the complaints employees have about those modifications is that there are only so many things they can add to a burrito before the tortilla rips or becomes impossible to close. That includes items like sauce, which can make the burrito so messy and soupy that it's hard to fully wrap without leaking. (Taco Bell employees can't use a second tortilla like you can in this simple trick for wrapping overstuffed burritos.) A number of customers have stated that they worried that the employees would get annoyed at their orders, but employees chimed in that they didn't really get that annoyed if they could still wrap it, especially for very simple changes. There's a difference between asking for some extra tomatoes and asking for three different meats and vegetables that aren't normally in the burrito.

For people who want extra sauce, you do have an alternative to asking the employees to try to wrap up a super-saucy and soupy burrito during a mealtime rush. Ask for additional sauce packets and just add a dab of sauce to the burrito before you take each bite. Don't be surprised if you receive a lot of sauce packets. One employee wrote that a customer had actually assaulted their manager for not giving them enough sauce. After a situation like that, you'd end up giving out a lot of packets, too.

This next sip of Taco Bell tea is probably not going to help dispel the popular image of selling mystery ingredients. The meat, including ground beef, chicken, and steak, isn't cooked fresh on a grill or stovetop. They come in plastic bags that the employees boil in water. Yes, Taco Bell's meat is essentially a boil-in-a-bag meal. The company gets its meat products from a processing plant that pre-cooks and seasons the meat before packaging it. It saves the workers at Taco Bell a lot of time because they spend only a few minutes boiling the meat to make it ready to eat.

The bag method is generally considered safe, but there's a side effect. Occasionally, an employee won't pay full attention when cutting open the bag to pour the meat out into a tray. They'll slash off a corner or another piece of the plastic, and it will end up in someone's food. If that happens to you, tell the employees and manager, if possible, so they know that they need to adjust how they handle the bags.

How many times have you ordered one of the Cantina crispy tacos only to find it in pieces? That's because they're truly fragile. In fact, one employee wrote that the Cantina crispy tacos were their least favorite item to cook because they were so easy to break. In addition to having to both steam and grill them, the employee also has to ensure the shells don't crumble during the process. Keep in mind that the process involves placing a heavy grill lid on the taco, which doesn't help matters. After looking at the number of complaints about broken shells, it looks like employees had a really tough time working with them.

The Cantina shells are different from the regular hard taco shells and, in the words of one employee posting on Reddit, they "would just look at the shells wrong and they just shatter." Another employee wrote in a Reddit reply, "They're more brittle than granola bars." So if you order a Cantina crispy taco and get fractured food instead, you know it wasn't the employee's fault. And as another person pointed out, the cheese should still hold the pieces of shell together.