Its Christmas time, and time to prepare some yummy cookies for the festive season. More than the cookies, the sugary cookie dough is what attracts the most during the making process. You just cannot keep your hands out of the raw cookie dough while the fresh cookies are still in the oven. However, health experts have warned against consumption of raw cookie dough. The baking season is underway and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is urging people not to eat unbaked cookie dough.
The centres are warning against even a tiny taste as unbaked products are meant to be cooked, and dough or batter can make you sick. The CDC has warned, “Say No to Raw Dough!”. The problem lies with two of the ingredients. Raw flour can be contaminated with Escherichia coli also known as E Coli and raw eggs have been known to be the carriers of salmonella bacteria. Both types of bacteria are killed during the cooking process. But contaminated food which is uncooked or under-cooked have the ability to make people sick.
Lindsay Malone, a registered dietitian with the Cleveland Clinic said, “When you’re making cookies, often the recipe calls for raw eggs. Whenever you consume raw eggs, you increase your risk of salmonella poisoning.” The dietician added that where there is a risk of salmonella, one must be cautious and take steps to avoid it as much as possible. In recent times it has been noticed that health experts have become more vocal about raw flour. The CDC had informed that in 2016 more than 60 percent across the United States had fallen sick due to E .Coli in raw flour.
So this means, that you should not even taste the batter or dough of cookies, pies, cakes or even bread and pizza crust. At the same time not all health experts say that raw cookie dough is dangerous.
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