Somewhere between the glowing fast food menu and driving up to Window Two to make sure they gave you extra ketchup packets, Americans forgot what and how to eat. Eating seems simple enough, until you realize what people are willing to eat nowadays.

Feces, for example.

I’ve eaten many things in my life. I’ve eaten food off the floor well past the five-second rule, and I’ve been duped into eating creatures that were still alive.

Despite my adventures, I draw the line at feces.

I’m going to assume you do, too. However, Whole Foods learned the public has a distaste for feces. On Aug. 8, Whole Foods recalled ground beef sold over the past two months that may have been contaminated with E. coli.

The type of E. coli toxic to humans lives in the intestines of animals such as cattle. In order for E. coli to contaminate your food, it must be defecated.

Occasionally when a cow is slaughtered, some of its feces get into your burger, chili cheese fries or taco meat. Puts a new spin on the term “cow patties,” doesn’t it?

As nauseating as it sounds, a little feces doesn’t seem to disgust the major meat suppliers, which control 80 percent of the market. What does disgust them is the price tag of running a clean operation that minimizes the risk of toxic bacteria getting into your meat.

Shouldn’t the USDA be regulating and scrutinizing the entire meat processing system? Yes, but it isn’t. Meat recalls are voluntary, not mandatory. According to Marion Nestle, author of “What to Eat,” the USDA doesn’t track food poisoning outbreaks either. The USDA backs down when the meat industry expresses its discontent with policy.

Fortunately, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has stepped in to protect consumers while the USDA is busy licking the meat industry’s boots. According to the Center’s reports, since 1990 there have been 30,000 people who sat down to dinner, took a bite and ended up consuming toxic bacteria.

Meat packers don’t care about those 30,000 people, though, because to them, those 30,000 people lack the common sense to cook their food properly. They think that by slapping a label on their products that tells you to cook your meat thoroughly before consuming they’ve passed the responsibility on to you. It’s not their problem there are feces and toxins in our food — they say it’s your problem that you didn’t cook the feces enough so that it won’t harm you.

It would be really easy to just tell you to go vegetarian. For a lot of people, not eating meat is a great way to avoid harming their bodies and to not support the meat industry. But not eating meat is a huge step for most people, especially Americans, who would lose the centerpiece of their meals if meat were off the menu.

Instead, look to local meat suppliers. The community holds local businesses accountable, which is a far more than what the USDA claims to do.

But here’s the rub: Just because it’s local doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safer. It just means that you know just where it came from, and the closer you are to the source, the easier it is to make sure they’re keeping it clean.

The meat industry and the USDA are not looking out for you. If this matters to you, the least you can do is pull your money out of the major meat market until it cleans up its act.

Until the USDA and the meat industry make sure business is done well, you’ll have to make sure your next burger is well done.

McConnell is a Dallas junior in English.