Can cookie dough be a health hazard?
When I bake cookies I usually let my kids stick their fingers in the dough to taste a sample. Now a friend claims that they can get sick this way. I can't believe this one-what could be wrong with cookie dough?!
You may not want to hear this, but it's true: That cozy domestic scene could be setting the stage for illness.
With any homemade food that contains raw eggs, such as cookie dough, cake batter, and eggnog, there is a risk of infection by salmonella bacteria. Salmonella poisoning is the second most common type of food poisoning, bringing on stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
When you buy commercially prepared versions of foods that contain eggs, the salmonella risk is gone, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Commercial products are made with pasteurized eggs-eggs that have been heated enough to kill bacteria, and that also may contain an acidifying agent that kills the bacteria.
You don't have to give up cookie dough, though. The FDA says that the store-bought kinds are not a food hazard. If you hate to give up that made-from-scratch feeling of accomplishment, you can substitute pasteurized eggs for raw eggs. You can find pasteurized eggs in the refrigerated dairy case at your grocery store. (from Medformation.com)
Do you really want to take the chance? Guess it depends on how cushie your toilet seat is.
the only time I ever got sick ( and mildly so) was when I ate entire batch of raw cookie dough. I've been 'tasting' the stuff for... fifteen years now...
Can cookie dough be a health hazard?
With any homemade food that contains raw eggs, such as cookie dough, cake batter, and eggnog, there is a risk of infection by salmonella bacteria.
I guess the source of you eggs might be an issue then. But aren't raw eggs often consumed? I'm sure there's a chance of bacteria, buy how high is that chance?
I'm guessing you are more likely to have a car wreck, or slip on wet pavement.
When you buy commercially prepared versions of foods that contain eggs, the salmonella risk is gone, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
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You don't have to give up cookie dough, though. The FDA says that the store-bought kinds are not a food hazard. If you hate to give up that made-from-scratch feeling of accomplishment, you can substitute pasteurized eggs for raw eggs.
O look, the FDA encouraging you to buy processed food with added coloring and preservitives. So it safe to eat cookie dough if you didn't make it. Hpoe you like their recipie. And it's safe if you use a processed egg product in a carton. Just don't use real eggs.
Thomas "going to get milk, cream(for butter), and eggs from a local farmer" Dodd
I read somewhere that there is more risk of bacteria on the OUTSIDE of the shell that in the egg itself.
Dan Schultz
"The Village Tinker" http://www.thevillagetinker.com" target="_blank
Current 'stable'... Rudolf Meinl 5/4, Marzan (by Willson) euph, King 2341, Alphorn, and other strange stuff.
I've been eating all kinds of cookie dough for years... never gotten sick from it. I did get salmonella from airline food, but never from cookie dough. I'm sure there is a risk, but that's true of anything and everything in life.
Fresh eggs with shells intact were once thought to be sterile inside. Today, scientists know that fresh, unbroken shell eggs may contain the harmful bacteria Salmonella enteritidis. While the number of eggs affected is less than 1 in 10,000, there have been scattered outbreaks of foodborne illness due to this organism in the past several years. And, fresh, unbroken shell eggs are now considered to be one on the growing list of potentially hazardous foods.
The risk of foodborne illness from eating raw eggs is particularly serious for people who are vulnerable to bacterial infections. These people include the elderly whose immune systems weaken with age, infants whose immune systems are not fully developed, chronically ill people with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women because of risk to the fetus. The risk of foodborne illness from eating raw eggs is particularly serious for people who are vulnerable to bacterial infections. These people include the elderly whose immune systems weaken with age, infants whose immune systems are not fully developed, chronically ill people with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women because of risk to the fetus. (Kansas State University, 1995)
According to the survey, which sampled UK-produced eggs on sale in shops and markets, one in every 290 boxes of six eggs on sale has any salmonella contamination, compared with one in 100 in a 1995/96 survey. (UK Food Standards Agency, March 2004)
Things seem to be different by country. The bottom line is that us healthy people can continue to eat cookie dough. Its worth the trip to the privy now and then. Maybe it would help to wash them down with Sake.
While the number of eggs affected is less than 1 in 10,000, there have been
...
According to the survey, which sampled UK-produced eggs on sale in shops and markets, one in every 290 boxes of six eggs on sale has any salmonella contamination, compared with one in 100 in a 1995/96 survey. (UK Food Standards Agency, March 2004)
Those number don't match well. Are U.S. chickend healthier?
Is the U.K. number one egg or more than one per infected box?
How much contamination is being measured? How much is needed for a reasonably healthy person to notice the effects? For a less than healthy person, or one with a weak immune system?
Theoretically, chocolate kills dogs and cats. Yet, when I was a child, I always shared my Hershey bar with Lady, our family mongrel. She lived for many years and killed by a freight train. In Indonesia, our cat, Midnight would often steal my Mounds bars--she took them, I didn't offer them to her! We left her in Indonesia and, at the time of my divorce (eight years after we left) the family that took her said she was doing very well, still stealing chocolate bars!
I never offer chocolate to dogs or cats, but they seem to have a suicidal instinct of enjoying chocolate!
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You only have one chance to make a first impression. Don't blow it.
I got my grandson baking homemade cookies. I had no idea how much he loved cookie dough until he told me his favorite ice cream is chocolate chip cookie dough. I told him the cook always gets to lick the mixing spoon and bowl and he does. So far no problems.
Makes me wonder which is more dangerous, eating pre-baked cookies from God knows where or rolling the dice on what bacteria may be hitch hiking on or in fresh eggs.
I always wonder about imported beer. Does an anti-American brewrey employee in a foreign country have an opportunity to "sabatoge" a vat of beer to be exported to the U.S.? Know what I mean, Butterbean?
If the raw eggs are the problem and you are making your own cookies, then just buy pasteurized eggs and use them in the recipe. They should be right beside the regular eggs.
From what I've read
"A healthy person's risk for infection by Salmonella enteritidis is low, even in the northeastern United States, if individually prepared eggs are properly cooked, or foods are made from pasteurized eggs."
i really have only gotten sick sorta once. But it was just a stomach ache you get from eating too much of something. it was last summer, and i was laying around watching some movie and i got up for a snackbreak and found those breakable from pillsbury in the fridge, so i downed a whole pack of them. i am sure i am not the only one who has taken this risk.
My 26 year old son hardly ever gets a chance to eat a cookie because he always locates the dough before anyone has a chance to cook it. He has eaten hundreds of pounds of the stuff and never been sick. The only time he ever got sick at his stomach was at Marti Gras on a slice of pizza from a street vendor. That's his story and he is sticking to it.
I am fortunate to have a great job that feeds my family well, but music feeds my soul.
tbn.al wrote:My 26 year old son hardly ever gets a chance to eat a cookie because he always locates the dough before anyone has a chance to cook it. He has eaten hundreds of pounds of the stuff and never been sick. The only time he ever got sick at his stomach was at Marti Gras on a slice of pizza from a street vendor. That's his story and he is sticking to it.
You don't suppose he washed the pizza down with a gallon of Jim Beam?