Taco Bell and Pizza Hut will start using ingredients we recognize. Woot!
Recently, there’s been an amazing trend with fast food chains all across the country. As we become more and more aware of the foods (and sometimes chemicals) we put into our bodies, food chains have tried to adapt to our concerns. Their new goal is to make fast food better by becoming waaaay healthier, and that includes removing a bunch of strange and foreign additives. The latest chains to make some good changes? Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.
Yum Brands Inc., who owns both Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, is starting to remove artificial colors and flavors from the food we know and love. Let’s not be sad about this, but instead celebrate because now we won’t have “black pepper flavor” in our foods, but rather real black pepper. Sounds like we might start feeling a little bit better about eating that Doritos Locos taco at 12:30am.
Removing artificial colors and flavors will be a slow process, but it’s going to begin right now. Liz Matthews, Taco Bell’s chief food innovation officer, explained that new recipes are currently being tested, with a goal to have them rolled out everywhere by the end of the year. Start saying goodbye to artificial dye Yellow No. 6 in the nacho cheese, Blue No. 1 in the avocado ranch dressing, carmine in the red tortilla strips. We can’t say we’ll miss you that much.
Pizza Hut, meanwhile, hopes to have all artificial colors and preservatives out by the end of July (KFC is also owned by Yum Brands, but no word yet on what’s going to be happening to the fried chicken, if anything).
These two chains are clearly following in the footsteps of other fast food locations which have also recently started doing away with artificial ingredients. Chipotle recently announced that it was getting rid of genetically modified ingredients, making us feel 100% better about that burrito. Panera also recently announced that it was doing away with 150 artificial ingredients, so BRING ON THAT SOURDOUGH SOUP BOWL. Across the board it looks like we can start feeling better about the food we consume, along with knowing a little bit more about exactly what we’re putting into our bodies.
Buh-bye foreign ingredients, hello good stuff.
