Taco Bell Uses Oats as a Preservative

I just received this email from a reader named Shauna today. She had a terrible reaction after eating at Taco Bell.

I am 31 years old and highly allergic to oats. I ate at Taco Bell and wound up with a reaction so bad that I wound up in the emergency room after giving myself an epi-pen injection and had to have several breathing treatments. Turns out that Taco Bell uses oats in their meat to make it go further. I just wanted to warn you and others with oat allergies.

Thanks for the note, Shauna. One actual advantage of eating fast food (probably the only one, besides convenience) is that the chains tend to list their ingredients online. I skipped over to tacobell.com and looked up their ingredients list (direct link to PDF here). Quite a bit of oats in there.

Seasoned Beef Beef, Water, Seasoning [Isolated Oat Product, Salt, Chili Pepper, Onion Powder, Tomato Powder, Oats, Soy Lecithin, Toasted Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Maltodextrin, Sugar, Soybean Oil (Anti-Dusting Agent), Black Pepper, Oregano, Cumin, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Caramel Color, Cocoa Powder (Processed With Alkali), Lactic Acid, Natural Flavors, Natural Smoke Flavor, Modified Corn Starch], Salt, Sodium Phosphate. CONTAINS SOYBEAN, GLUTEN 

Furthermore, I saw oats and oat product in the chili and oat fiber in the taco shell.We rarely eat out for this very issue, but we certainly gravitate towards establishments that publish their ingredients online.