We've all read the horror stories about people finding fingertips in fast food, bloody bandages in pizza, and a condom in a bag of French fries. But the grossest things in our food rarely make headlines—and chances are good that consumers of meat and dairy products have ingested at least one of them:

1. Arsenic. Farms feed chickens and pigs arsenic to help ward off infections in the filthy living conditions and to turn their flesh the pink shade that is considered appetizing. Because nothing says "appetizing" like poison.
2. Poop. When animals' intestines are torn open during slaughter, feces spill out onto their flesh. So when people buy the meat, they're getting, well, sorry, crappy food.
3. Industrial runoff. Who would head down to the local river, whip out a glass, and gulp down some river water? No one? Well, then people might want to avoid eating fish, who are contaminated with the pollutants that run into waterways from our tanneries, factories, and industrial plants, as well as manure runoff from pastures.
4. Calf stomach lining. Many cheeses are made with rennet, an enzyme taken from calves' stomach lining. Does eating baby stomachs make you sick to yours?
5. DDT. Even though the U.S. banned DDT, it remains in the environment and particularly accumulates in animal fats. Think, "Double-Decker of Toxins."
6. Pus. Cows on dairy farms often suffer from mastitis, a painful inflammation of the udders caused by bacteria. Their bodies try to fight off the infection by producing pus, and guess where the pus goes. Into the milk and into the milk-drinker's mouth.
7. Pink slime. The now famous picture of what looks like the result of a kid smashing all his Play-Doh together is actually mechanically separated meat, a main ingredient in many processed meats such as chicken nuggets and hot dogs. It's made by sending animals' bones through a machine that scrapes off the last bits of flesh and blood, forming the bits into a paste, and then treating the mass with ammonia, dyeing it, and adding flavor to it.

Makes me crave … broccoli.

wikimedia / CC

Remember how people were disgusted when we suggested putting human breast milk in ice cream? Compare that to the latest news story out of Australia—the one about the family of vacationers who discovered that, no, that wasn't chocolate ice cream; it was more of a dookie congelée. Now whose ice cream is gross, hmm?

That's right—a pair of guests at the Coogee Bay Hotel in Sydney were served a nice dish of gelato, complete with its own poop garnish. They believe that they were served the chocolate poo chunk as an act of "kitchen revenge"—the couple had complained about some loud music earlier that evening.

You know what my favorite part of this story is? That "DNA analysis is now being carried out to determine whether the poo was of human or (sic) animal origin." ("I went and threw up, obviously," the woman said. No kidding!)

On the other hand, as Alexia over at PETA Europe points out, is this so very much worse than the frozen secretions in milk? I mean, yeah, it is disgusting, but at least it's not full of pus, right? And hey, both get squeezed out of an animal. … I'm just sayin'.

And wait a minute—it's not like a lot of people aren't regularly eating poop anyway. Think about it: Animals on factory farms are stuck in their own waste all day long—is it any surprise that meat is so often contaminated with feces? And people wonder where salmonella comes from ….

Written by Amanda Schinke