The holidays are a time for baking. Whether you’re preparing an old family recipe or just breaking apart ready-made cookies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a warning for all the bakers out there. The federal agency is warning people against eating raw cookie dough. It’s not just an old wives tale, that dough can make you sick.
What’s so wrong with a little raw cookie dough?
Whether you scoop a finger full of cookie dough for a taste test, or lick the beaters, health experts are saying this baking tradition is a no-no. It’s not for fear of a sugar overload, it’s because bacteria may be inside the dough.
The CDC says cookie dough can carry E Coli, a harmful bacteria that can bring on symptoms like nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The warning was prompted after Nestle ready-made cookie dough was contaminated with the bacteria. The outbreak left 77 people ill, 35 of which had to hospitalize.
While it was the first time an E. Coli outbreak has been traced to prepackaged cookie dough, it heightened the sense of danger than can be lurking in the dough.
Why the experts issued the warning?
“Raw cookie dough is not ready to eat, it is ready to bake,” CDC’s Karen Neil, MD said. “You shouldn’t eat raw cookie dough, regardless of who makes it.
In the past, raw eggs have caused many salmonella outbreaks linked to cookie dough. But in the 2009 cookie outbreak, the culprit “wasn’t salmonella, it was E. Coli,” Neil says.
So, rather than sampling the cookie dough before it’s cooked, experts say it’s best to sample afterwards.
“As tempting as it is to sample cookie dough, do not veer from the recommendations on the package,” says David Hirschwerk, MD, an infectious disease doctor at North Shore University Long Island Jewish Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. “If the package says you should cook it, then you should cook it.”
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