And he learned that cleaning a cat’s litter box is far from the only route by which people become infected. You can get it by eating vegetables that haven’t been scrubbed properly or by failing to wash your hands after gardening. Grazing livestock can also pick up T. gondii from the ground, and the rapidly replicating organism not only travels to the animal’s brain but also produces thick-walled cysts in its muscle—the flesh that we eat. For that reason, people who consume undercooked beef or lamb are at greater risk of acquiring the infection.
