Read This Before You Order A Soft Taco From Taco Bell

Taco Bell's soft tacos have been on the menu for over 50 years now, so they're nothing new (via Taco Bell Fandom). The ingredients are simple: They mostly just contain a flour tortilla, seasoned beef, lettuce, and cheese. Despite having prevailed as one of Taco Bell's top menu items for so long, we bet there's a lot you don't know about soft tacos.

According to Brand Directory, Taco Bell was the sixth most popular restaurant in the U.S. in both 2021 and 2022. The only burger restaurant that currently beats out Taco Bell in terms of popularity is McDonald's. Many people seem to be looking for alternatives to burgers when they want fast food, and soft tacos certainly fit into the non-burger category. 

There's much to know about the history of Taco Bell's soft taco: Some trivia will give you a better appreciation for this classic. Plus, there are several Taco Bell soft taco hacks that will help you enjoy them even more. 

You may think "real" Mexican tacos consist of a soft corn tortilla. However, Mexico has a variety of regional cuisines, so tacos from each area are different based on the immigrants who settled there and the ingredients that are available to you. 

According to the Mexican author Gustavo Arellano, Mexicans have been consuming tacos for a long time, particularly in terms of stuffing food into tacos (via Atlas Obscura). Additionally, according to Arellano, some people assume that flour tortillas are recent inventions, but the origins are quite complex (via Splendid Table).

Corn tortillas have been around for centuries in Mexico, but flour tortillas are common in the Northern part of Mexico. There's a possibility that Jews who moved to the New World in the 1500s may have created flour tortillas as a kosher, lard-free alternative to corn tortillas (via Food52). Although, Arellano says it's also a possibility that flour tortillas came to Northern Mexico and the Borderlands with the Spanish Moors. 

Whatever way flour-based tacos came to Northern Mexico, contemporary Northern Mexicans still use flour tortillas in their cuisine, so flour-based tacos are still very much authentically Mexican.

The truth about Taco Bell's "seasoned meat" is that around 12% of the ingredients aren't really comprised of any meat. Sure, 88% of the "seasoned beef" is real cow meat (via First We Feast). But it's the 12% that makes people pause. 

If you make taco meat in your own kitchen, you're likely to add many of the ingredients Taco Bell puts in its seasoned beef. These ingredients include salt, chili pepper, tomato powder, sugar, onion powder, other spices, smoke flavor, and even cocoa. You might even add oats (as Taco Bell does) to your hamburger meat since they help lean meat stick together.

However, there are a few other ingredients in the "seasoned meat" that might not be as familiar. It contains cellulose (fiber found in plant cell walls), maltodextrin (a thickener and filler), soy lecithin (an emulsifier and flavor protector), disodium inosinate & guanylate (a naturally-derived flavoring), and sodium phosphates (a thickener and preservative). It also contains more familiar ingredients like yeast, citric acid, dextrose, lactic acid, and cornstarch. Luckily, all of these are safe ingredients in small amounts.

If you're looking for a healthier way to order your soft taco, ordering it "fresco style" will result in a soft taco with more veggies, less fat, less cholesterol, less sodium, and fewer calories. Ordering anything fresco-style at Taco Bell means that the only toppings on the protein in the taco are lettuce and tomatoes, sans the cheese.

The original soft taco comes with lettuce and cheese, so ordering a soft taco fresco style adds tomatoes and subtracts cheese. According to Taco Bell's nutrition calculator, simply taking away the cheese eliminates 20 calories, 3 grams of fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 50 milligrams of sodium, and 2 grams of protein.

Tomatoes are normally a soft taco supreme option (along with sour cream). However, adding tomatoes to your original soft taco adds a gram of sugar. So, if you need to eliminate sugars in your diet, you might consider ordering it without tomatoes or cheese. 

Taco Bell uses Mission tortillas. NASA quickly adopted the same Mission tortillas for its longer missions aboard the International Space Station (via Business Insider). NASA opted for tortillas because it didn't pose the same problems as bread, which tends to crumble in space. 

However, the shelf life of tortillas was still an issue. NASA tried to make its own tortillas, which lasted for about six months. Taco Bell's tortillas can last for almost up to a year without becoming bitter or reducing in quality.

Not having to restock tortillas mid-mission was helpful. Plus, NASA was happy to leave the tortilla business (via Grunge). Of course, Taco Bell's tortillas won't last for space missions that are longer than a year. 

NASA reports that it plans to one day solve the tortilla longevity problem by having future astronauts grow their own high-yield wheat to make their own tortillas. For now, it's Taco Bell's tortillas to the rescue.

In 1995, Taco Bell announced three new menu items featuring bacon, including a BLT soft taco. That year, other major fast food chains like McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, and Arby's rolled out sandwiches with bacon. So, it seemed like an obvious step for the booming taco chain. 

The BLT soft taco was only 99 cents, but unlike burgers with bacon, people just didn't go for tacos with bacon. Taco Bell's chicken club burrito and bacon cheeseburger burrito also didn't do well, as evidenced by none of these menu items sticking around for long (via Mashed).

 It wasn't long until all three of these bacon-based menu items slipped back quietly into the night. Taco Bell customers in 1995 just weren't ready to embrace bacon in their Tex-Mex. However, today, bacon is popular in everything from soap to lip balm. In 2022, Mashed suggested that bacon jam is an ingredient you should be putting on your taco but aren't, so maybe we're ready to try it again in the 2020s.

Taco Bell hosts the Why Pay More! Challenge in Puerto Rico with $100 for every taco eaten going to the Boys and Girls Club of Puerto Rico. The challenge? Contestants are to eat as many tacos as possible in 10 minutes.

The reigning champion soft taco eater is the world's top competitive eater, Joey "Jaws" Chestnut. His earlier world record was 53 tacos in 10 minutes (via Major League Eating). However, in 2017, he broke his own world record by eating 126 tacos in eight minutes (via YouTube). That figure works out to one taco every eight seconds, which is a staggering number of tacos to cram into your mouth and down into your stomach at one time. Nobody was going to come close to beating him, but they certainly tried.

Chestnut says he does training exercises to prepare himself for his eating competitions, which involve working his muscles to push food down and belching exercises. He also runs to work on breathing control, so he doesn't choke on his food (via Mashed).

In January, 2022, Taco Bell announced a nationwide taco-a-day subscription program. Depending on the location, you could get a subscription for a taco a day for only $10 (via CNBC). 

A soft taco costs $2.29 (depending on location), which would normally make eating a soft taco every day for 31 days cost $70.99. So, getting a taco subscription could save you $70.99. Even better, you can choose from crunchy, soft, spicy, or Doritos Locos in original or supreme varieties.

Of course, Taco Bell is betting people who order a free taco every day will order more than just a taco during their visit, so they ultimately end up making more money than they otherwise would. Chances are, you won't want to eat Taco Bell every day of the month. 

Jeremy Schneider of NJ Advanced Media tried eating a taco every day with his subscription By day 30, he was sick of Taco Bell, even though he loved the food served by the chain. Luckily, if you only use the subscription for five days of the month, you've still saved money.