Taco Bell Debuts Vegetarian-Certified Menu
Ordering out when you’re eating a plant-based diet can be a nightmare. Most of us, including myself, cook almost every meal at home. But what do you do when you’re on a road trip? Or you’re strapped for cash? Although fast food certainly isn’t “Forks Over Knives” approved, even plant eaters need a cheap, fast meal sometimes. Taco Bell has always been an option for the struggling vegan. The chain has recently made leaps and bounds when it comes to recognizing the demand for vegetarian and vegan products, which has been made clear in their new American Vegetarian Association (AVA)-certified menu roll out. I never thought I would be ordering food through a drive-thru speaker box again.
The reason behind the menu update stems from the quick-service restaurant’s initiative to “provide customers with choice, transparency and simplicity.” There hasn’t been another QSR to offer something like this, ever. This is a huge win for the meat-free movement, and with 26 certified vegan menu options there is something for everyone! The company has other monumental goals as well, such as removing all artificial colors/flavors from its food by the end of this year, and artificial preservatives and additives gone by 2017. After perusing their AVA-certified ingredients online it is clear that they want us to know exactly what we are buying. I was very impressed.
The new vegetarian menu exhibits 7 completely vegetarian meals, all customizable and… vegan-izable. The release notes that customers can also “hack the menu” and create vegetarian and vegan-friendly dishes with any of its 35 AVA-certified ingredients, 26 of which are also vegan (some of these are sauces, but you get the point). The chain also allows customers to swap out meat in favor of beans to “create one of millions of different possible veggie-friendly dishes” at no extra cost, woo! You can pretty much customize any menu item you want and it’s totally fine. At other QSRs this would end up being costly and inefficient.
As far as ingredients, the 26 AVA-certified vegan items are:
Sauces: Border Sauce, Fire Border Sauce, Hot Border Sauce, Mild Border Sauce, Verde Cantina Salsa, Green Chili Sauce, Green Tomatillo Sauce, Mexican Pizza Sauce, Red Sauce
Beans
Black Beans
Guacamole
Jalapenos
Lettuce
Onions
Cilantro
Pico de Gallo
Salsa Del Sol Premium
Latin Rice
Romaine Lettuce
Taco Shell
Tomatoes Tortilla
Tostada Shell
Flatbread Rainforest Coffee
Given that this list includes beans, tortillas, salsa, and guacamole, vegans have plenty of delicious options to make a meal with. You can order and customize everything on Taco Bell’s website, which for me was easy to access and understand. I ran through it to see how easy it was, and oh man. This is fabulous for an introvert like me. You can order and pay for everything, all you have to do is go get it at your local Taco Bell. Sometimes it’s difficult to ask for ingredient swaps in face-to-face interactions with food service workers for fear of being a difficult customer, so this is great.
“We get it — being a vegetarian can be tough when you go out to eat,” Mr. Brian Niccol, CEO of Taco Bell Corp, said. “We’re proud to treat meat lovers and vegetarians equally — equally delicious, equally craveable and equally affordable.”
Taco Bell was asked whether or not they would be introducing completely vegan menu items in the future, to which they replied: “As a leader in the vegetarian space, we will continue to explore other options, just as we are for other relevant lifestyles, as we continue to innovate across our entire menu.” Great news, right? Imagine a 7-layer burrito with Beyond Meat crumbles and Daiya… look at me getting ahead of myself.
Here are a couple of menu items to use as reference next time you find yourself in line for a cheap burrito:
Taco Salad (make it vegan!)
What to say: Substitute beans for beef, leave out the sour cream and cheese, and add rice, potatoes, guacamole, and red sauce. Yummm.
Bean Burrito (make it vegan!)
What to say: No cheese, add potatoes and rice. Put some guacamole on the side. Or you can say “Fresco Style,” which means they will remove the cheese and sauce and replace it with pico de gallo.
For dessert grab a bag of their “accidentally vegan” cinnamon twists!
Alright, let’s get real. Don’t go overboard on the fast food. Although this is great if you’re running low on cash or you’re traveling, it’s probably not a great idea to make it a regular thing. We want to support companies that recognize the existence of vegans (side-eye at McDonald’s “beef flavoring” in their french fries) but it’s important to eat whole foods most of the time if possible. This new menu is fantastic news, we are changing the world!
For more information, check out: https://www.tacobell.com/news/taco-bell-first-qsr-to-offer-vegetarian-certified-menu
By Guest Blogger Dana Lingard