We all have a dirty little food-related secret: we enjoy eating cookie dough because it’s so incredibly tasty. Well, maybe it’s time to stop? No, seriously, it is time to stop and the CDC is urging you to do just that.
What is the first thing you do after popping a lovely batch of cookies in the oven? Is it eating cookie dough raw, with your fingers, from the bowl where you made it? It’s quite understandable since it’s incredibly delicious and everybody does that. If you’re not, you might be lying or are just very good about keeping yourself healthy. Because, as the Washington Post reports, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is urging everybody to just stop doing that. Why? Because “unbaked products that are intended to be cooked, such as dough or batter, can make you sick.”
Now that I have your attention, let’s talk more about this because I am sure nobody wants to spend their holidays hugging the toilet and being super sick. You can’t even have one tiny taste of it (and I am aware that by saying that I might be transforming eating raw cookie dough into a tempting, irresistible forbidden fruit). “Say No to Raw Dough!” the CDC warns.
Why is eating cookie dough bad?
Because of the two primary ingredients you’re making it with. Raw flour can be contaminated with E. coli, while raw eggs have been known to carry the salmonella bacteria. So yeah, that is a lot of possible bad to happen for just a taste of something sugary and sweet. Neither of these bacteria can survive the heat in the oven, but when you have them raw, all bets are off.
According to the CDC, two years ago, more than 60 people became ill because of the E. coli in raw flour.
