The FDA Would Like to Remind You Not to Eat Raw Cookie Dough

Do you find it hard to resist gobbling up a piece of raw dough when making cookies, or letting your children scrape the bowl? Do your kids use raw dough to make ornaments or homemade “play” clay? Do you eat at family restaurants that give kids raw dough to play with while you’re waiting for the food?

If your answer to any of those questions is yes, that could be a problem. Eating raw dough or batter—whether it’s for bread, cookies, pizza or tortillas—could make you, and your kids, sick, says Jenny Scott, a senior advisor in FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

That’s according to the New York Times. But this time it’s not the eggs, though. It’s the prospect of E. coli-contaminated flour.

So far, a reported 38 people in 20 states have been infected by a strain of bacteria called Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O121 found in flour. The infections began last December, and 10 of those infected have been hospitalized.

Investigators say it’s specifically flour that came out of a Kansas General Mills outpost in November 2015; the company has recalled millions of pounds of the stuff sold under the brand names Gold Medal, Signature Kitchens and Gold Medal Wondra. But… raw homemade cookie dough is really good. Thirty-eight people in 20 states—surely I’ll be fine?

Symptoms of the bacterial infection include severe stomach cramps, diarrhea (often bloody), and vomiting. Most people get better within a week, but in some cases, infections can lead to a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome. Those who are most vulnerable to severe illness include children under 5, older adults and people with weakened immune systems.

Oh. Well, then. Maybe I’ll pass.