The Internet Freaks Out When Taco Bell Reveals What’s Actually in Their ‘88% Beef’ Beef. Protip: Don’t Panic

When Taco Bell, purveyors of Doritos Locos Tacos and bubbleguts, announced that their beef was 88 percent beef, the internet had an expected field day. Now, it’s come to our attention that the chain’s website offers an amusing explanation of many of the unfamiliar ingredients found in the other 12 percent. As Eater’s Ryan Sutton calls it, the breakdown takes a modernist approach to cuisine and offers frank answers to curious fast food patrons.

Here are a few explainers from the Taco Bell site.

On maltodextrin:

On Cellulose

Despite the chain’s colloquial explanation of the ingredients that go into  its mystery beef-ish slushies, food writers and netizens alike are harping on the fact that these “weird names” and “confusing” descriptions are in fact chemicals.

Wait. So you’re surprised that the beef that’s probably been frozen since you graduated high school and is now nuked to room-temperature contains chemicals? If only something called the internet had something called Google where you could learn about the ingredients that go into your meal.

Bottomline: Stop. whining. or. stop. eating. fast. food. It’s as simple as that. Really.