“The Hamburger Report” by Clear Labs recently investigated 79 brands of burgers and 22 retailers in northern California. Out of the 258 samples tested, the lab reveals that there are 2 cases of meat in vegetarian products, 1 black bean burger with no beans, 4.3 percent of products contained pathogenic DNA, 3 cases of rat DNA, and 1 case of human DNA.

The rat DNA was found in a fast food burger, a vegetarian burger, and in ground meat. Also, human DNA was found in a frozen vegetarian burger, which could have been traced from hair, skin or fingernails that were actually mixed in during manufacturing.

“I always hear things about how meat is processed and contaminated and it’s honestly gross. Stories like this make me cringe,” says Hills student, Alexandra Awari.

Clear Labs notes that although many people are disgusted of this, DNA from rats and humans are not harmful. Studies show that fast food restaurants showed low rates of contamination, but there were “substantial discrepancies between the reported nutritional values on fast food menus and the nutritional values of fast food burger products we observed in our testing.”