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Subscribe to RSSIf you’re one of the many who often sneak bites of cookie batter while forming little mounds of the sticky, sweet stuff for baking, government scientists have a message for you. Stop it now!
A new report shows there may be some nasty germs lurking in ready-to-bake cookie dough.
“What our report shows is that you shouldn’t eat cookie dough raw, no matter where it comes from,” said the report’s lead author Dr. Karen Neil, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It’s supposed to be baked.”
Neil and her colleagues concluded that raw, ready-to-bake cookie dough was what caused 77 people in 30 states to become ill, 35 of whom became so sick that they needed to be hospitalized.
After learning about the outbreak, the researchers were able to track down the culprit by comparing the eating habits of 36 healthy volunteers to 36 people sickened by a deadly strain of E coli bacteria in 2009. Raw cookie dough consumption was the thing all 36 had in common.
When the researchers visited manufacturing plants where the cookie batter was being made their suspicions were confirmed: they found E coli in the samples they collected at the plants, according to the report which was published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Despite an exhaustive investigation, Neil and her colleagues still aren’t able to say which of the ingredients, or what part of the manufacturing process, led to the contamination of the cookie dough. It’s possible, Neil said, that flour might have been the problem.
Flour, she explained, doesn’t go through the kind of special processing to kill off pathogens that ingredients like pasteurized eggs, molasses, sugar, baking soda, and margarine do.
Neil’s investigation ultimately led to the recall of 3.6 million packages of cookie dough. The manufacturer of the dough isn’t named in the report.
If you’re a fan of raw cookie dough and are wondering why it is that you can eat cookie dough ice cream, Neil explained that the preparation process for the dough in ice cream is different from the product that is sold as “ready-to-bake.”
“The cookie dough in ice cream was meant to be consumed raw,” she said. “It’s formulated as a ready-to-eat product. The cookie dough that is labeled “ready-to-bake” in the refrigerator section of the grocery store – or even the dough that you make at home – should be cooked before you eat it.”
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Leave a Comment:
Ug. fire good. cook food.
Lately, several times we've gotten sick even AFTER we baked the cookies.
What the h*ll are they putting in that dough?
Well yeah cookie dough can make you sick. But it's still yum yum.
I think you've got it, peanut, time to go back to the stone age and make all our own food from our own raw ingredients. I thought they'd be bashing eggs again, but FLOUR? I guess it's time to drag out the wheat grinder and make my own flour, raise my own hens, milk my own cows...all on a .16 acre lot. I'm sure my neighbors will love me.
Oh, and I've NEVER gotten sick from cookie dough. One isolated incident and the whole government freaks out.
Google: cookie dough recalls
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What the h*ll are they putting in that dough?
Wood. "Cellulose fiber." is wood. They are starting to use it in all kinds of places where they need "filler" to increase "fiber."
Wow 77 people got sick out of 300 million. You're 500 times more likely to get killed driving home from the store with your cookie dough. My suggestion - eat the dough in the grocery store parking lot, you might not make it home to enjoy it!
Ever since I was a youngin my mother told me to keep my fingers out of my mouth. Did I? No.
To this day I rarely get sick and have to fake my sick days. A little germs here and there never hurt me and still don't. Could this be because I always had my fingers in my mouth? Maybe I built a better immunity with stronger phagocytes cells (white blood cells) and lymphocytes (which allow the body to remember and recognize previous germ invaders) in my body?
Dan,
Really, 300 million people ate raw cookie dough? Where do you get your math from? Education cuts?
What ever happened to the good old days when people made their own cookie dough? I remember mixing all the ingredients with my mom in the kitchen. Then I would eat about 1/3 of the cookie dough before the cookies were ever made....
Your immune system is not a muscle, you can't build it up by randomly "exercising" it. (Vaccines are another matter - they are not random.) It is always active, and it is always fighting off diseases; most of what it fights off, we don't even notice.
Pointless 'scare' article. It's not cookie dough per se. Some ingredient was contaminated, which means if that ingredient went into something else, you'd get sick from that. Condemning all cookie dough based on this??? My family has been eating raw cookie dough for generations. Of course, it's homemade...
We have this mistaken notion today that we can sanitize the whole environment and eliminate all risk. The world isn't perfect and it never will be.
Byron Raum - You are dead wrong. There have been numerous studies that have shown that children who grow up in too antiseptic surroundings do in fact have weaker immune systems. The exposure to low levels of germs and pathogens as children does in fact help the immune system develop and does lead to a stronger resistance to disease and germs as an adult. You should educate yourself before you spout off so that you have the facts and know what you are talking about.
I for one have eaten raw cookie dough numerous times and never gotten sick from it. I guess I am just lucky. Either that, or like everything else, this risk is being greatly overblown by the government and media just like every other event like this. Granted, there are risks in eating raw dough, but then there are risks in just about everything we do in life. If you live your life constantly worried about the risks in everything you do, you will never do anything.
St. Crispy - cellulose is sugar. It is a metabolite found in every plant on the planet, including the wheat that is turned into flour for most baked goods. It is also found in wood, yes. It is also found in corn, soybeans, grass, flowers.....
To address this article: well DUH! Anyone who has taken highschool bio, eaten at a restaurant, or shopped in a grocery store knows that consuming raw or undercooked food stuffs (i.e. egg, meat, poultry) risks infection. Our country has reached an amazing level of "the government should save us from our own lack of common sense."
In a country of 300 million people, 77 got sick from eating cookie dough while some 34,000 died in traffic accidents the same year.
Thought you would recognize the approximate population of the country and infer that I was basing my comparison on that rather than conducting a poll to determine what subset of that group actually eats cookie dough.
So much for reading comprehension, how about those education cuts?
There is raw cookie dough in my favorite ice cream oO
um, beer- the 'cellulose' you see on ingredient lists is most surely NOT sugar- the previous poster had it correct- it is non-digestible wood fiber. do a little research, but i warn you, you'll never eat at Wendy's again.... or Taco Bell...
Raw Cookie dough = gross
People really need to learn to cook. lol
Dear sikchimp - Cellulose, like glucose, sucrose, lactose, maltose, fructose, etc. are all sugars. This is simple organic chemistry/biochem. Talk about doing a little research! You are confusing sugar, a class of biochemical, with table sugar, which is defined specifically as sucrose.
So yes, you are correct that cellulose is not table sugar (sucrose), but that's not what I said at all. The OP was correct that cellulose is found in wood, and I agreed with his claim. But not matter how you slice it, no matter what terminology you choose, cellulose IS a sugar found in all plant matter, including all the plants we commonly eat without complaining about the biochemical makeup.
Cellulosic material can be metabolized although that process is much less efficient than our cells' catalysis of glucose. Bacteria however can be pretty good at metabolizing cellulose, meaning with a little more research we can create biofuel from refuse plant material high in cellulosic content, instead of using precious corn.
Ah, I just got a warm and fuzzy moment there thinking about all the times that I made from-scratch cookies with grandma and would sneak the cookie dough (at my uncles mischievous direction). Good times. And the only time I got sick was when I attempted to eat a whole bowl of it like ice cream-- I didn't throw up, mind, but I only made it through the halfway point before I gave up and played with legos. :-)
Sorry, scientists, but sometimes we're supposed to get sick. We've fought so hard in this last generation to kill "99.9% of all germs on contact" that we've become immune to the icky things they carry.
My body, my decision: It's worth the risk. Thanks for the advice anyway.
Took the words right from my mouth! :)
Thank you, JS in SD!
I'm one of those kids that ate raw cookie dough, was allowed to play in the dirt, when walking around my property and our street in my bare feet, ate the non "organic" labled veggies and fruit from the grocery store and didn't take cough and cold medicine for every little sniffle-my folks made me cream of chicken soup and sent me to bed, and took me to the doctor if I wasn't better in a week. As an adult, I know the difference between a case of the "seasonal" sniffles and a serious bacterial infection like strep and I'm stubborn-I hold out going to a doctor until I feel like I'm being dragged behind a galloping horse because I can't stand doctors telling me what I already know-I just want the serious antibiotics and a little painkiller. I would even try and work a half-day before I'd get too tired and have to clock out and go home to sleep for three hours before I made myself a huge dinner and went back to bed. I tried to let my body recover my itself before I went to a doc. These days parents guard themselves and their children against every little thing and as a result, this is what happens. The smallest bad bacterial strain now carries the risk of killing them. And I do partially agree with Rick's Real-sometimes, having a slight cold is just our body's way of telling us we're pushing it-every once in a while, you're going to have to stop and rest. What you let your body get sick from, though, should mostly be your choice.
here's the research: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703834804576300991196803916.htm
l http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose
cellulose is NON DIGESTABLE WOOD FIBER.
i am a professional cook, and see this all day long. you are intentionally mis-informed.
omg.. it's so good though, especially the Nestle chocolate chip cookie dough..idk i guess i will just stop making them then because that is the best part!!!!!
Ehh, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. I used to eat cookie dough every now and then, not the pre-made cookie dough, but from scratch.
I still eat raw cookie dough but I also make everything from scratch, not only is it much cheaper and tastier, making it from scratch gives me control over the quality and freshness.
I make it from scratch as well and always have a few bites. It makes sense that something processed in a plant would be more prone to bacteria.
What about in the 70s and 80s, when people would drink raw eggs? I wonder if any of them died?
I used to drink an egg in orange juice every morning. Of course, those eggs were gathered from the chickens on our farm. I never got sick from it. I would not do the same with an egg from the grocery store today.
I buy the eggs that are marked free roaming chickens not the eggs from industrial farms that cram chickens into small cages, pump them up with antibiotics and cut their beaks to keep them from pecking each other.
Eating raw egg white depletes the vitamin B6.
Mark - making it from scratch won't prevent you from ingesting salmonella if the eggs are infected with it. There is no way to tell, so buying eggs from free roaming chickens or chickens you raise yourself is not going to protect you. The only way to be safe is to refrain from consuming raw eggs.
Mark it may surprise you that few, if any, of those label claims are ever independently verified. USDA organic certification works on an affidavit system, the grower simply signs a paper saying they are compliant. It is simply put, a marketing stunt to fetch premiums on the product. The grower may be subject to a few checks when they first apply for certification, but after that, there is no compliance spot check nor a tracking system in place by USDA.
What's worse than eggs, is the interstate beef trade, where animals are bought/sold with altered tags and ICVI's without any way to verify or trace the animal's origins. Very dangerous in the event of animal disease outbreaks and product recalls. The USDA proposed a rule-change in 2004 to being tracking interstate animal trade, but of course the growers objected and to date no such system has been implemented.
It might be nice to have some, um, evidence that cookie dough made from scratch at home is dangerous before making this kind of blanket pronouncement. People have been eating raw cookie dough for centuries without consequence. The only thing new here is the factory.
I've been eating raw cookie, cake, brownie dough/batter occasionally for 30 years with no ill effects. Most of that was homemade, though, not the premixed....
You're not supposed to eat raw eggs. Eggs are usually in cookie dough. AKA don't eat cookie dough from scratch either...
I'm sure people get sick from homemade raw cookie dough all the time. We just don't hear about it on the news.
The only reason for the "don't eat raw eggs" mantra is the filth that the chickens are raised in now. And the problem there is salmonella, not e Coli (re the article), and it is actually on the outside of the shells, not in the egg. Mayonnaise is traditionally made with raw egg. They aren't inherently bad for you. It's the curse of the modern farming methods that have made them so. Usually it is sufficient to wash the shell well before breaking the egg if you are going to consume it in its raw state.
I wouldn't fear the eggs - 99% of them are pasturized before they go to the store anyway.
There are strains of salmonella that can live inside of the egg as well as on the shell. Washing the egg will help you against some strains, but not all, so it isn't wise to use that as a blanket mantra.
On the other hand, 77 people getting sick in a country of how many million? I'm not too worried about my odds - not that I am a fan of cookie dough, or even cookies, anyway.
Not only should the current farming practices be questioned. A trend in the last couple of decades, at least here in the southwest has been for some stores to keep eggs in unrefrigerated conditions.
Yes, well, it only takes a very little amount to make you sick as a dog if it's your time to get salmonella poisoning. If you have that once, you will never want to have it again.
hey chris, PLEASE don't tell people lies like that, you could kill someone. very few eggs are pasteurized, and the ones that are are incredibly expensive (my previous kitchen is required to use them, about $5 a dozen.)
I think everyone already knew this. There are a lot of things that can make you sick, but i'm not going to stop. Life is too short to not do the things you enjoy and regret not doing later. I'm willing to risk it.
I think it's hilarious how they're freaking out about cookie dough, but they still let people smoke cigarettes! How screwed up is that?
The tobacco lobby is larger than the nestle toll-house lobby.
Catsclaw, it's a person's right to kill themselves slowly with nicotine. The government has just been protecting the rest of us by kicking smokers out of bars, restaurants, and other public places. Just like it's my right to eat raw cookie dough if I want.
stop eating cookie dough? Yeah okay, right. Please!
Your name fits your statement perfectly!
Homemade cookie dough = raw egg. You are taking a chance with that.
But how much of a chance is that? I've known people, including myself, that have consumed raw egg all their lives and never gotten sick from it... Hell, I've never even heard anecdotal instances of someone that knows someone that knows someone that knows someone I know getting sick from eating raw egg.
I know I'm just one person in a world of billions, but I think that if the risk was so great, I would have had some sort of even passing personal experience with this alleged threat to public health during my 38 years of life.
They say the odds of getting sick from a raw egg are equivalent to eating 80 eggs a day for 80 years.
Who is "they" and on what data did they base their statement?
I don't remember, I heard that somewhere anyway. But there was a study in 2002 by the Dept. of Agriculture that said salmonella was found in/on only 1 in 30,000 eggs, and that most of those the salmonella hadn't penetrated the shell (so washing the shell before cracking would ensure that the egg itself would not become contaminated). Anyway this article isn't about eggs, as people would know if they bothered to read it. They are blaming the rodent crap in the flour for an e coli contamination, it wasn't salmonella at all.
really? NEVER known about someone getting sick from eating raw egg? ever heard of someone getting the stomach flu? THERE IS NO SUCH THING. it is a polite way to say food poisoning. and since the onset of foodborne illness is generally 16 to 48 hours after consumption, it is often hard to track exactly where your illness came from.
but sometimes it is easy. 2 years ago, i got salmonella from sunny-side up eggs cooked in a restaurant. if that is what you can catch from eating undercooked or raw eggs, you don't have to tell me twice- i almost died.
We need a new cabinet level position - 'Cookie Dough Tzar'
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah....more Government BS. I'll eat and drink whatever I want, thank you very much!
Yes, but isn't it nice to be able to make an informed decision?
Yes Lovely, but how informed is the decision when it appears to based on the flimsiest of numbers and evidence? 77 people out of how many? Over what time-frame? With no possible way of knowing beyond a shadow of doubt that it was absolutely the cookie-dough that caused this in all 77 cases?
Anyone making a decision based on this study is not making an "informed decision" by any stretch of the imagination. I'll take my own personal experience in the matter and use it as the basis with far more confidence than I would this junk-science report.
But Lovely's point is simply that this information isn't a ban on eating raw cookie dough. It's just a report that says raw cookie dough can cause problems. I'm not going to stop eating raw cookie dough, but someone out there that reads this might.
And this isn't a science report. It's a media story about a science report. The actual report probably has the statistical significance and confidence level included. If you're worried about absolute numbers then go read the actual report and they'll explain why it's significant at that seemingly low number.
I call Bu$$ S***!!!
That's a no brainer when you consider you have raw, un-cooked, eggs in dough.
Except that they didn't find any issue with the eggs at the plant and believe the contamination came from the flour. And since the FDA allows a certain percentage of bug and rodent sh!t in grain products, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. Of course the flour you buy in the store probably isn't any cleaner.
I am quite used to eating raw cookie dough and am unimpressed by the statistics of this study. Bad Science in = Poor Results out. The pH of 2 in the stomach plus the massive quantities of Coca-Cola I crave when I eat cookie dough probably will likely kill all the E. coli and other bacteria if they are present.
Any food item is susceptible to bacterial, fungal and spore contamination but I see no evidence that there is a significant increase in illness from eating raw cookie dough.
This just in, eating raw poultry products might make you sick. Seriously, this is almost as good as the one last year that said "People under the influence of alchohol have lowered inhibitions".
Flour is a raw poultry product? That really is a news flash.
I am confused....people have been eating ready to bake cookie dough for decades and we didn't have any E.coli outbreaks. Recently we have an outbreak, they track it to a specific manufacturer (which means the other ready to bake makers didn't have any E.coli issues) and instead of fining and having that company change the way they do things, they tell us we should never eat any ready to bake cookie dough. The simple fact that we have had a huge epidemic of E.coli outbreaks in the past few years that we never had before in USDA history tells me that the problem lies in the relaxed rules and regulations on the food industry and the USDA, USDH and EPA having their hands tied when it comes to going after the violators.
77 people in 30 states... 77 people out of how many who ate raw cookie dough (millions or one hundred); and over what period of time (20 years or two weeks)? Don't these guys have an editor?
That's exactly what I was going to post. 77 people out of how many and for what time-frame?
I've eaten bites of raw cookie dough since childhood and every year on Christmas I make homemade eggnog (no booze) for my me and my kids, just like my dad did for my siblings and I. It also has raw egg in it... never got sick from it.
I think I'll take my own personal experience over some trumped up sounding government study.
Good question, but it's answered in the actual study. Don't read a media report then attack the study you haven't actually read.
I agree BU$$ $***! I'm 71 and I've been eating cookie dough all my life. We used to drink egg nog all the time too! Who these idiots are that are getting sick on FROZEN cookie dough are just looking for an easy street lawsuit! Notice how it's always OK to BUY something but if you make it yourself it's unsafe????
What the heck do we need a gov't scientist to tell us this. We're trillions in debt, let's save a little by firing these jokers.
I knew a guy that ate raw hamburger, was 65 when the government told him he had to stop drinking and go through treatment or they were going to take everything. He was dead in 6 months. I eat cookie dough all the time, homemade, the stuff in the tubes, all of it, never had an issue and probably never will. Difference is I haven't cut every germ out of my diet and I don't wash my hands every time I touch fresh air. A couple more reports like these stupid government funded waste of money things and everybody will be too scared to blow their noses.
They actually sell tissue's with anti-bacteria in them! So don't be scared to blow your nose. Band-aid's with anti-bacteria in them, so don't let good ole' air dry that cut-put a plaster on it! Dish soap with anti-bacteria in it as well, so don't be afraid to get in there and do those dishes. Then when your done, you can wash your hands with anti-bacterial soap, have a BM and wipe with a special anti-bacterial personal cleanup wipe, and then take a shower with anti bacterial soap. Climb in that bed with fresh sheets that have been washed in anti-bacterial laundry soap--and a little bit o' bleach for good measure, and dried with an anti-static, yes anti-bacterial dryer sheet. Is it any wonder we have ginourmous germs, and other bugs that they are starting to call SUPER? Wonder if we can get some kryptonite next shopping trip? I'm with you Jim. Your post made me smile!
I once made it through an entire bucket of raw cookie dough from Costco (not in one sitting). After I had eaten it all, I was contacted by Costco saying that particular brand of cookie dough was being recalled (I don't remember if it was for E Coli or something else). Even so, I didn't get the least bit ill.
My general opinion is that if I know that it has some risk, which I do, then I should be able to assume the risk myself and decide whether or not it is worth it to eat.
Leaving the house involves some "risk."
I agree totally. My 'beef' is with hamburger places that won't cook their burgers rare anymore. If I want it rare, I should be able to get it that way. If they refuse, then I assume they have poor hygiene in their kitchen and go somewhere else. If I am aware of the risk and am willing to assume it, why should they care?
enough- the reason they won't do it is because you are not properly informed of the risk. they know that over half of all hamburger sold in the US is 'pre-seasoned' with E-Coli. but they can't tell you that in their restaurant, because their boss won't let them tell you how bad the beef supplier is... want rare beef? get a steak and sear the outside. raw hamburger? there is no safe enough supply for me to risk dying for one.
When I was a child we played in the dirt, ate raw chop meat, cookie dough, cake batter from the bowl, didn’t always wash our hands and some how survived. Today people live in their sterile environments, use their hand sanitizers, pop antibiotics for sniffles and die from eating cantaloupes.
I'd have to agree with the hand sanitizers. That's just a scam industry like "Airborne."
Wasn't the manufacturer of "Airborne" sued into oblivion for making false medical claims?
I just can't believe people think those hand sanitizers do anything. It's like they think it gives them a magic bubble of protection.
Just wash your hands and don't touch your eyes, nose or mouth.
Cooking from scratch is much healthier and less expensive...it's not all that difficult to put together ingredients for cookies...measure dry ingredients ahead of time and keep them in a jar or baggie, ready to add the wet ingredients. Viola, HOMEMADE cookies.
I eat the wife's homemade cookie dough all the time.. Why would you by cookie dough from a store?? doesn't make sense to me!
Agreed! Making cookies from scratch isn't that much work, and they taste far better. I've been eating homemade cookie dough for 36 years and haven't gotten sick yet.
When I make home made cookies or cakes I always scrape the bottom of the bowl.. always, and have never gotten sick. I would not eat raw dough that was made commercially but I have no problem with what I make at home. And nothing tastes better than the batter from my Mom's German Chocolate Cake made from scratch.
You pretty much have to taste the batter/dough before you bake it, it's your last sanity check that you put everything in and it will come out right. I would never put a cake in the oven that hadn't been tasted first, what if it needs a little tweaking?
Wait, are they saying raw cookie dough is unsafe to eat because you shouldn't ever eat raw flour???
Apparently. Although most of the posters, since they didn't read past the headline think they are reiterating the don't eat raw egg thing.
I am definetly a "science type." But with that said, there are some things when people look at the number and then toss common sense outside the window.
Saying you shouldn't eat cookie do is kind of like saying you shouldn't go 30+mph on a bike wearing only spandex, a pair of gloves and a helmet, or you shouldn't wear waxed boards on your feet and go down a snow covered hill, or swim in the ocean.
I mean, yeah, the "number" say one thing but unless you are going to bubble wrap yourself and never leave the house there are some "risks" that are just part of being alive.
The problem is the numbers aren't even there for this "study". How can a person ascertain the actual risk involved when some incredibly important figures are left out of the equation.
I mean, what do we have here? 77 people got sick, apparently from eating raw cookie dough... no absolute certainty, mind you, but we'll go ahead for the sake of argument and say it was the cookie dough. Over what span of time did these 77 people get sick? A week? A month? A year? A decade? .. It doesn't say. It says that these people got sick in 30 states.. but out of how many people that DIDN'T get sick? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thounsand? A million? Ten Million? ONE HUNDRED MILLION?!!! That's some pertinent information needed for this study and its results to have ANY credibility whatsoever!
What we have here appears to be a fear-mongering report based on junk-science, vague numbers and flimsy evidence.
One ten thousandth of one percent of all Americans got sick enough from cookie dough (coooooookies!) to visit the hospital! In some period of time!! .000001 of us!!! Head for the hills!!!!
I wonder if the doc drove to work. Real risk, there.
WarBeast: And I wonder how much taxpayer money was spent on this?? And if you could assume that, if given the warning, all 77 could have avoided becoming sick to begin with, then what does that break down to per patient??
Seems to me this is just another one of those stories to be put in the file labeled: "Things You Didn't Know You Needed To Worry About"