The Surprising History of Taco Bell

Today on Weird History Food, we're going to take a look at the spicy, gassy history of Taco Bell

The titular Bell is actually a reference to the company's founder, Glenn Bell, who named the place after himself

Inspired by the cuisine at the Meat La Cafe in San Bernardino, California

Bell started tinkering with a recipe for crunchy tacos as early as 1951

The tacos were a hit, leading Bell to become a partner in two different taco chains, Tacotia and El Taco

In 1962, using money he made selling his steak in the El Taco chain

Glenn opened the first Taco Bell at 7-1-1-2 Firestone Boulevard in Downey, California

Today, Taco Bell is owned by Yum Brands, the same corporation which owns Pizza Hut and KFC

But between Yum Brands and Glenn Bell, Taco Bell had another owner, Pepsi

Yes, in 1978, Coke's number one competitor bought Taco Bell from its founder for $125 million

In 1997, they spun their fast food division off into a separate company called TriCon Global Restaurants

So in 2002, TriCon became Yum Brands. For as long as there has been Taco Bell, there had been rumors that the meat and their products was not meat

Taco Bell meat is 88% beef. And the other 12% is mostly common fillers derived from oats

The meat is also blended with an additive known as soy lessothin which acts to keep the ingredients in their beef from separating but the ingredients themselves aren anything you wouldn find in the meat at any other fast food restaurant In 1979 McDonald produced a Happy Meal promoting Star Trek the motion picture

But it wasn't until 1989 when Taco Bell joined in the promotional campaign for Tim Burton's Batman

that the fast food business truly realized how lucrative such a tie-in could be

The effort was so successful, it smashed Taco Bell's records for promotional tie-ins

If you watched television during the 1990s, then you probably remember the Taco Bell Chihuahua

That ad campaign cost half a billion dollars. Despite the campaign's popularity, it didn't boost the franchise's sales at all

Not only that, but two men who claimed who have created the Taco Bell Chihuahua later sued for $42 million

And Taco Bell settled out of court. When astronauts go into space, they usually go for months at a time

Unfortunately, not every kind of food is right for space travel. Crumb-free foods are safe, so NASA took the time to explore tortillas as a suitable replacement for fresh bread

When Taco Bell came out with the extended shelf-life tortilla in the late 1990s, NASA tested them

They found that the Taco Bell tortillas would store for 12 months without any bitter flavor development

After that discovery, NASA began using the Taco Bell tortillas on extended missions

In 1992, the company put some taco carts and Taco Bells next to their KFC locations in Mexico City

But the customers found Taco Bell's tacos more similar to Tostadas and were just confused by the whole thing