Healthy Diet Base Better choice for better life!
It’s easy to understand our unhealthy fixation with tacos. This seemingly healthy snack is easy to prepare and is delicious. It satisfies our cravings for a salty crunchy snack. Loaded with cheese, ground beef, and shredded vegetables, tacos make for a fuss-free, filling snack – especially for busybodies.
Unfortunately, there is a dark side to this scrumptious Mexican treat. And in today’s post, we are listing down the hidden dangers of eating tacos:
Refined Grains
You might not know it, but the raw grains used to make the taco shells could be made from GMOs or are ultra-refined to the point that they hold no nutritional value. Refined flours and grains are linked to the development of chronic diseases including cancer.
Tacos are loaded with empty calories and simple carbs. The body processes these nutrients very quickly, causing the dreaded mid-morning or afternoon sugar crash. This occurs when the blood sugar level shoots up them plummets down. When the blood sugar level is low, it leads to intense food cravings. This paves the way to poorer food choices. Worse, the body can get addicted to simple carbohydrates. This is why you want to keep eating unhealthy foods after caving in. Tacos are highly addictive and fattening but contain very little nutrients.
MSG
Ever wonder why tacos are so savory and tasty? It could be the copious amount of MSG sprinkled together with artificial seasonings to make the taco “beef” tastier. Monosodium glutamate is a flavor enhancer that’s derivative of salt. Although MSG occurs naturally, its taste is duplicated and isolated in MSG seasonings.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deemed MSG as safe for public consumption. However, health experts also tag it as a “silent killer” in the kitchen. This food additive is linked to a variety of chronic diseases, including obesity, brain disorders, and cancer. MSG is a type of excitotoxin that causes brain damage. It can alter the brain’s ability to respond to certain hormone leptin to trigger satiety.
Mystery Meat
In 2011, a class action suit was filed against Taco Bell. The lawsuit claims that Taco Bell has met the minimum federal requirement for its “beef.” Taco bell asserted that its beef is 88% real beef, not 35% beef, as charged in the lawsuit. Although the lawsuit has been dropped, the issue uncovered a grim truth: Taco Bell’s beef is not 100% beef.
To illustrate, let’s look at the list of ingredients Taco Bell uses to create its taco beef:
“Water, isolated oat product, salt, chili pepper, onion powder, tomato powder, oats (wheat), soy lecithin, sugar, spices, maltodextrin (a polysaccharide that is absorbed as glucose), soybean oil (anti-dusting agent), garlic powder, autolyzed yeast extract, citric acid, caramel color, cocoa powder, silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent), natural flavors, yeast, modified corn starch, natural smoke flavor, salt, sodium phosphate, less than 2 percent of beef broth, potassium phosphate, and potassium lactate.”
With such a long list of preservatives, Taco bell should be required by law to re-name its taco “beef” as mystery meat.
Artificial Colors and Flavorings
As you can see from the list of ingredients for Taco Bell’s beef recipe, there’s barely any beef meat thrown in. To make the beef mixture look and taste like the real thing, artificial colors and flavors are added. And most of these compounds are harmful to the body.