Taco Bell

(http://www.tacobell.com)

They don't use lard. You should make sure to ask that nothing you order contains meat, as many of the dishes can be served with or without meat. Their phone number is 1-800-TACO-BELL and they are happy and helpful in answering any question in reference to which products are vegan or vegetarian..

Vegan dishes are Bean Burrito (without cheese), Bean Tostada (without cheese), nachos without cheese, Mexican Rice (without cheese), Seven Layer Burrito (no sour cream or no cheese) and the Guacamole. Vegan sauces are mild, red, hot, fire, Soft Tortillas, Pizza Sauce and Green Sauce. Corn tortillas (hard tacos), burritos tortillas and wheat tortilla (soft tacos) are vegan.

The soft burrito tortillas are not vegan, they contain non-fat dry milk. The hard corn tortillas however are vegan, as are the refried beans.The pinto bean are vegan.

Vegetarian dishes are Bean Tostada (without cheese), Pintos n' Cheese, Mexican Pizza without meat, taco salad without meat, Breakfast Quesadilla, Country Breakfast without the sausage, Chalupa shell, Veggie Fajita Wrap, tortilla chips, Gordita flatbread, Seven-Layer Burrito with no sour cream and tostada shells. The Gordita and Chalupa shells contain milk products..

The sour cream contains gelatin derived from an animal source. The Fajita sauce may contain chicken flavoring. The Ranch dressing usually contains eggs and milk.

They say that their cheeses are Kosher and that because of the cost of using rennet derived from animal sources that they use genetically engineered coagulants. Their supplier during the production of the cheese use a non-animal genetically engineered coagulants (an enzyme) derived from a genetically engineered strain of dairy yeast, Kluyveromyces Lactis.

According to information that they sent me their Mexican Rice does not contain chicken broth and their Quacamole does not contain sour cream that is meat derived.According to their letter both these products are vegan..But I also received a letter from a person telling me that a couple of his friends who worked at a few Taco Bells who were told to put beef fat on the rice, so it would be a risk to eat the rice.

If you email them on their Web Site they will send you answers to any question you ask about the vegetarian friendliness of their products and also send you a complete list of the ingredients of all the products that they sell.

Copyright ©2001 John Howley and Spiritual Guides