MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – You’ve got recalls on the mind.

Richard, Peggy and Janet all asked: What happens to recalled meat?

It depends. In most cases, recalled meat ends up in a landfill. And that’s what will happen with the recalled meat from Cargill — at least what’s still out there.

Stores pull it from the shelves – distributors too – and send it back to the company. Cargill tells me, they’ll send all of it to a landfill that’s approved for this kind of thing.

There are times that recalled meat gets collected, cooked at high temperatures to kill the bad stuff, and then sold to dog food companies.

Betty Kirtz wants to know: Has the United States ever have no debt?

We’ve always had debt. To pay for Revolutionary War, we stacked up $75 million worth of debt by 1791.

We almost wiped it out in the 1830s by selling land for development. In which case, the national debt went to its lowest level: $37,513.

Kelly in Prairie Farm, Wis., wants to know: Why are computer keyboard letters in this order?

This goes back to 1874, and you can blame Christopher Sholes, from Remington. He was designing the keyboard for an early typewriter, and found that typists were typing too fast — it was messing up the mechanics of the machine.

So to slow people down – he spread out the most commonly used letters.

Nolan, because he’s turning 4 Monday, gets the final question. And it’s about the bathroom.
Why do we call a toilet a “potty?”

It’s actually a fairly new expression. We’ve only been calling it a “potty” since 1942.

It comes from the old chamber pot. These pots were used in the 1800s as a way to urinate and they were often kept under the bed for an overnight emergency.

“Potty training” is an even newer term. That’s only been around since 1958.