Over the past several years the popular Mexican-style burrito palace known as Chipotle, has been rising in popularity. With locations on many college campuses, including Purdue, Chipotle has become a convenient restaurant of choice. However, in recent months, hundreds of E. Coli outbreaks across the country have begun to threaten this household name’s reputation.

According to reports published in the New York Times, sales have dropped nearly 30% during the month of December and stock shares continue to fall. Although this may be good news for competitors like Qdoba, what exactly does all this mean for the loyal Chipotle customer? Amidst a federal issued subpoena and several law suits, Chipotle is determined to reestablish their street cred.

Some of you may be wondering what exactly E. Coli is. The media tends to over exaggerate the insidious nature of this gram negative bacteria. In fact, E. Coli naturally occurs in the human digestive system. However, it can be very dangerous if it circulates in the wrong areas of the body. In Chipotle’s case, E. Coli has contaminated one of it’s food sources due to improper sanitation and disinfectant techniques.

There are several different strains of E. Coli, but the most common sign of infection is nausea and diarrhea. Unfortunately, there really isn’t a way to treat the infection either. The only thing to do is to stay hydrated and ride it out. In layman’s terms, this is just a pretty nasty case of food poisoning. The trouble is, because E. Coli has the potential to survive in many environments, Chipotle can’t figure out which of it’s ingredients are contaminated or what events took place to promote the spread of bacteria.

In an effort to bounce back from the damages to it’s reputation, Chipotle plans to close down it’s restaurants for a few hours one day in February to conduct food preparation and safety lessons with their employees. According to a company spokesperson, educating employees about the importance of food handling hygiene is the key to preventing this type of incident from happening again. This is especially important for a company like Chipotle because their main marketing strategy is promoting the integrity of both their ingredients and their employees.

So, can we ever fearlessly devour Chipotle burritos again? Or will we be haunted by the hundreds of customer toilet chronicles forever? The answer is up to you. It is likely that in order to preserve it’s popularity, Chipotle will seriously be stepping up it’s hygiene game. In fact, this may cause them to make some serious changes that will sky rocket them to front of food safety success. The fact is, whenever you decide to eat something you did not prepare yourself for, you are taking a risk. Next time you are feeling like living life on the edge, take another stab at Chipotle. Their recent efforts in food safety might be giving a more literal definition to the phrase “clean eating.”