This is going to be a fairly short diary, but I figured there are probably some people -- as well as people who will read this who aren't DKos regulars -- who would want to know about this. Many people who are vegan will not eat anything that has been contaminated by animal byproducts, or in any way involved the labor of animals. For some people it is actually a religious restriction, and that can make eating out difficult in the first place. A long time ago there was a controversy because McDonald's was using oil that was forbidden to many Indian people who ate at the restaurant.
Well, it turns out that Taco Bell recently added a new product to their lineup that makes a whole bunch of their products no longer safe for those who need their food to be strictly un-contaminated by meat. Mind you, this doesn't mean all of their foods are now meat-contaminated, and depending on how strict your personal restrictions are this might now bother you at all.
Anyway, before I explain some quick back story. Full disclosure, I worked at a Taco Bell for a bit recently, but have now moved on to another part time job. I have been working part time jobs along with my freelance writing for magazines to make ends meet, while I try to prepare for bankruptcy. I've talked to a volunteer lawyers organization, and am waiting for a default judgment from one of my creditors -- the volunteers will help once they consider it an emergency (when they need to protect me from having wages garnished, etc.). Anyway, this path led me to Taco Bell for awhile, where I saw a huge swath of labor violations, employee abuse, and a lot of disorganization. Which is not to suggest the entire company takes part in these practices, but the particular store I worked at was very disorganized, and would probably be very heavily fined if the state labor board ever took a close look.
Cutting to the chase, we would often get large Indian families who had dietary restrictions for religious reasons. It was very important to them that no meat be involved in the making of their products -- even a little contamination was a big problem for a lot of them. They would ask for gloves to be changed out before their order was made, and didn't want anything that had touched meat to cut their food. Unfortunately, many of the items they enjoyed may now be off limits to them for religious reasons. Worse yet, Taco Bell corporate has cut all training hours, so people aren't being properly trained on this and aren't explaining it to customers. I had been working up front for weeks before one shift manager actually took the time to explain it to some customers. This means that word is probably not getting out very well at all anywhere, and this could lead to an eventual backlash.
Well, Taco Bell recently started testing new crispy chicken in many locations throughout the country, and may soon be rolling them out nationally. This is a serious problem because before, everything that Taco Bell dropped in the fryers was basically vegetarian. Taco Bell's only keep one fryer around, because they don't run the kind of volume on things like fries and stuff that many other fast food joints do. This means that all of this crispy chicken is being dropped in the same oil used to fry absolutely everything else that has to be fried. One Indian family wouldn't eat anything that had been in the oil once they found out about this, and their business may never return. For those of you who are wondering what stuff is affected, basically think, anything fried. So any of the chips used in nacho's, taco salad shells, any of the fried desserts like churro's or cinnabon, Mexican pizza's shells, chalupa shells, crispy potato's etc. All of this is now fried in the same oil as chicken products, and the chicken is very, very popular so a lot of it is dropped every day.
Just a public service announcement for those of you who visit Taco Bell (or know those who do) and have dietary restrictions whether for personal or religious reasons, when it comes to meat based products. Note: If your location doesn't yet serve chicken this isn't something you need to worry about, once they do, you can expect it's all going in the same oil as everything else.