CDC warns bakers not to eat raw cookie dough

One of the joys of baking cookies this time of year is enjoying a little scoop of raw cookie dough on the side.

Yeah, you shouldn’t be doing that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There’s a chance you could get salmonella or even E. coli from that spoonful of uncooked dough.

Raw eggs can carry the bacteria for salmonella, which can cause diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps. But it’s not just because of the eggs. Flour typically hasn’t been treated to kill germs like E. coli, which can cause diarrhea (sometimes bloody), severe stomach cramps or vomiting.

Both of those bacteria are killed during cooking, so it’s the uncooked or undercooked foods that can make you sick.

Here are the safe food handling practices recommended by the CDC:

• Don’t taste or eat raw dough or batter (that includes biscuits, cakes, cookies, pancakes, pizza or tortillas)

• Never taste or eat crafts made with raw flour, like homemade Christmas ornaments or play dough

• Don’t let kids play with raw dough

• Fully bake raw doughs and batter and follow the recipe’s instructions

• Don’t make milkshakes with products that contain raw flour

• Don’t put homemade cookie dough into ice cream

• Keep foods like flour or eggs away from ready-to-eat foods

• Clean up after handling flour, eggs or raw dough, washing your hands and whatever you used to cook with warm, soapy water.

But what about the chocolate chip cookie dough prevalent in ice creams and milkshakes, or the shops that sell edible cookie dough?

Those, for the most part, are made with heat-treated flour or without eggs. Some, however, do contain eggs that have been pasteurized to kill bacteria.

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