The Beyond Taco

If there’s a taco chain I love the most, it is Del Taco.  I do not have them where I live in Florida, but when I leave the area and come near a Del Taco, I chose it over anywhere else.  However lately I’ve been on a diet, the details of which don’t matter, but it has led to trying some new things, like various veggie burgers, the Impossible Burger, and so forth.  Enter Del Taco, where I normally order the namesake “Del Taco” with the regular filling.  But what do I spy?  The “Beyond Taco”, full of fake meat and otherwise the regular trimmings.  So I order it.

I’m such a Del Taco fanatic that I’d probably get into a drunken argument with you about why Del Taco is the best out there, given the chance.  But this, this particular item, it just doesn’t make sense to me.  The flavor was just okay.  The texture just sort of okay.  But I’m eating the thing, thinking to myself, that even though I’m still eating cheese and a fried corn shell at least I’ve negated some of the naughty dietary stuff with this taco.  I also always have them cram a couple hits of guacamole, because, that’s important always.

Anyway the experience is what it is, and then I look up what the Beyond filling is made of.  Apparently, pea protein ranks high in it.  Which means that this filling made of a legume, has tried to imitate meat for the sake of a taco.  But wait, what normally goes really well in a taco?  Beans, also a legume, that don’t have to imitate anything to earn their place there.  So I’m left wondering why bother making a fake meat from pea protein when you could just replace the meat with some re fried beans and call it a vegetarian taco or something?  Nothing has to pretend to be something it isn’t that way.  So next time I went into a Del Taco I just went ahead and ordered the normal Del Taco (with guac) because I want my Del Tacos to be honest with me.