Many Americans serve turkey or ham as their traditional holiday meal meat. If you happen to be one of those folks who parties with the pork, please, please don't save money on the gas bill by undercooking it. You could end up with a parasitic brain-eating worm in your cranium.

There's a small but growing trend of tapeworms being found in pork in the U.S. according to Raymond Kuhn, a parasite expert at Wake Forest University. "Upwards of 20 percent of neurology offices in California have seen it."

The worms, called cysticercosis, live in pork and, depending how you consume them, could end up in your intestines, reproduce like mad and "start growing like an alien." Most worm larvae are expelled during digestion, but if any of your food then ends up feces-tainted, those little eggs can hit the bloodstream and lodge all over your body.

So, to recap: Cook your pork, wash your hands and steer clear of dookie, so things that grow like aliens don't invade your noggin. Need any more motivation? Check out the video above of a Phoenix women who found out that what she thought was a brain tumor was actually cysticercosis.