Taco Bell discloses ingredients fully and the disclosure is damning: 121 of 126 food items contain a seed oil and 124 of 126 contain an additive, with a canola fryer and a flour tortilla built on interesterified and hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil. The bright spots are narrow, with no TBHQ or BHA/BHT anywhere and synthetic dyes only in the three Doritos-shell items.
Taco Bell publishes complete per-item ingredient statements, and what they show is bleak. Of 126 food items, 121 contain a seed oil; the only 5 that don't are the Diablo, Fire, Hot, Mild and Breakfast Salsa packets. The fryer is canola ("Prepared in canola oil") and the flour tortilla uses "shortening (interesterified soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, hydrogenated cottonseed oil)". Taco shells are soybean/corn/cottonseed, refried beans are soybean oil, and Avocado Ranch, Avocado Verde Salsa and Creamy Jalapeno all list soybean oil first. 124 of 126 items carry an additive: sodium phosphates 104, maltodextrin 101, modified starch 98, mono-and-diglycerides 83, disodium inosinate and guanylate 73 each. Only Hash Brown and Hash Brown (V) are additive-free. Credit where due: no TBHQ or BHA/BHT anywhere, and the dyes (Yellow 5 and 6, Red 40) plus caramel color are confined to 3 Doritos-shell items.