“Taco Bell and Cheez-It, two leading titans of comfort food, introduce the most innovative meals of the summer,” trumpeted the Taco Bell news release in May.

“Innovative”? That’s not how we’d describe the companies’ latest lineup of high-salt, ultra-processed menu items that fuse fast food and snack food into new combos of red meat, cheese, refined (white) flour, and food additives. It’s just Big Food marketing 101…and just another opportunity for the two companies to team up to capitalize on each other’s popularity.

What new items are on the Taco Bell Big Cheez-It menu?

The two limited-time-only creations—a Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme and Big Cheez-It Tostada—are built with “an all-new Cheez-It cracker that's 16x larger than the standard Cheez-It cracker,” says Taco Bell, which dreamed up the “cheezy” menu with Kellanova (formerly Kellogg), the maker of Cheez-Its.

In the Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme, the 16x white-flour Cheez-It is layered with ground beef, nacho cheese sauce, sour cream, lettuce, and tomatoes inside a white-flour tortilla. Its calories (570) are roughly equal to a McDonald’s Big Mac (590 calories).

The Big Cheez-It Tostada (230 calories) replaces a tostada’s usual crispy tortilla base with the supersized Cheez-It, topped with ground beef, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes.

Then there’s the Big Cheez-It Box, which comes with a Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme (570 calories), a Beefy 5-Layer Burrito (500 cal), Nacho Fries served with nacho cheese sauce (330 cal), and a medium fountain drink. Depending on your drink, the combo meal can deliver 1,400 to 1,680 calories and over 17 grams of saturated fat—nearly a full day’s maximum (20 grams).

What food additives are in the Taco Bell Big Cheez-It menu items?

Heads up: It’s not just the white flour, red meat, and cheese that make the Taco Bell Cheez-It items unhealthy.

We checked their ultra-processed ingredient lists against CSPI’s Chemical Cuisine Food Additive Safety Ratings and found additives that we rate as either “caution” or “avoid” in the Crunchwrap and Tostada (cellulose gum, carrageenan, TBHQ) and the Box’s Nacho Fries served with nacho cheese sauce (cellulose gum) and Beefy 5-Layer Burrito (cellulose gum, carrageenan).

(The nacho cheese sauce alone is an ultra-processed concoction made of nonfat milk, “cheese whey,” water, vegetable oil, modified food starch, dipotassium phosphate, cellulose gum, sodium stearoyl lactylate, and 10 other ingredients.)

To learn more about the science supporting our food additive safety ratings, check out Chemical Cuisine.

How much sodium is in the Taco Bell Big Cheez-It menu items?

The Big Cheez-It Tostada has 570 milligrams of sodium, a hefty 25 percent of the 2,300 milligram Daily Value (daily maximum) for adults. And for a menu item with a mere 230 calories, that takes a big bite out of your overall sodium budget. So does the Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme’s 1,460 mg sodium (nearly two-thirds of the Daily Value).

But the salty Big Cheez-It Box reaches up to 3,780 milligrams of sodium—more than 1½ days’ worth. Here’s how its contents add up:

• Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme: 1,460 mg sodium
• Beefy 5-Layer Burrito: 1,280 mg sodium
• Nacho Fries (with cheese sauce): 770 mg sodium
• Medium fountain drink: up to 270 mg sodium (depending on the drink)

That 3,780 mg total is so high that on New York City menus, you’re likely to see a sodium “Warning” next to the Big Cheez-It Box.

When does Taco Bell (or another restaurant chain) need to post sodium warnings?

If you think a menu item with as much sodium as the Taco Bell Big Cheez-It Box should come with a warning, Philadelphia and New York City agree.

In those cities, menus for chain restaurant items with more than 100% of the Daily Value of sodium (2,300 mg) must post a “sodium warning” by law.

On a New York City menu, you could expect to see a “Warning” statement bearing a saltshaker symbol next to the Taco Bell Cheez-It Box. The symbol “indicates that the sodium (salt) content of this item is higher than the total daily recommended limit (2,300 mg). High sodium intake can increase blood pressure and risk of heart disease and stroke.” (Philadelphia’s warning is similar. Taco Bell also posts both warnings on its website.)

What you can do

All of us deserve access to crucial information that affects our health. That’s why we’re pushing to expand sodium warnings beyond Philadelphia and New York City…and beyond sodium.

Three nutrient warning bills now in New York State would, if passed into law, require the labeling of foods and beverages that have a high content of added sugars or sodium. Click here to learn more about New York’s statewide warning label campaigns or join CSPI in taking action.

In the meantime, learn more about how to curb your risk of heart attacks and strokes by staying active and eating healthier, lower-sodium foods.