Is Taco John's actually better than Taco Bell?

I've never been a fan of Taco Bell. To me the food was gimmicky and lacked flavor and substance. Yesterday, though, my near hatred of Taco Bell was vindicated when a lawsuit surfaced stating that their "beef" contained a mere 36% beef and was packaged as "Taco Meat Filler". Even more disturbing was the fact that, after watching a news story about the subject, a food item classified as being 100% beef only needs to contain a mere 40% beef.

The rest of the bulk is made of wheat and soy fillers, binders and extenders which I'm nearly certain contains far less nutritional value that even the fattiest ground beef would.

This report, WCCO's Good Question, did little more to calm me:


Yesterday, as I sat in the local Taco John's drive-thru waiting for what I assumed were superior tacos, I watched a fairly steady stream of cars roll through the Taco Bell drive-thru across the street. Either these people really love shitty food or had heard nothing about the food that's making them fatter (for a low price to boot) not really being food. Whatever the case, I went on with my day not really thinking about what I had eaten until later. Then I tweeted my thoughts and the two almost immediate responses were troubling. They, one of them being Jason DeRusha, both agreed that the Taco John's product was likely the same.

Later still I did some lazy sleuthing on TacoJohns.com and within their allergy information, all of the items containing ground beef had the categories of soy and wheat allergies checked. To me this signifies that the Taco John's beef also contains soy and wheat fillers along the lines of the Taco Bell "beef". A quick search of off-the-shelf Ortega taco seasoning mix reveals no soy or wheat ingredients in the flavoring which, to me, rules that out as a possibility.

So, at a dead end for now, I'll open the question to better sleuths with more time. What percentage of fillers and actual beef is contained in Taco John's taco meat? I'd be surprised if I'd ever receive a straight answer but given the not-so-shocking news about Taco Bell, I am interested in knowing that the supposedly better choice is, in fact, better.