Add E. coli to raw cookie dough risks

People who eat raw cookie dough risk serious illness and the culprit is not always the raw eggs.

In a study published in the most recent issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, an investigation headed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracked a 30-state E. coli outbreak that hospitalized 35 people and sickened twice that many in 2009. They concluded it was the first Shiga toxin-producing E. coli outbreak "associated with consuming ready-to-bake commercial prepackaged cookie dough. Despite instructions to bake brand A cookie dough before eating, case patients consumed the product uncooked," the study said. "Manufacturers should consider formulating ready-to-bake commercial prepackaged cookie dough to be as safe as a ready-to-eat product."

It also noted that "more effective" consumer education about the risks associated with raw cookie dough is needed.

Typically, the suspected source of illness is raw eggs, which can carry salmonella. In the case of this outbreak, the illness was E. coli and the suspect was the flour. The outbreak, which resulted from eating raw chocolate chip cookie dough, was spread across the United States, skipping states here and there.

The company, referred to in the study as Company A, and some other cookie dough makers have since begun using heat-treated flour in cookie dough production to make the unbaked dough safer. But it's still not something people should eat raw, they said.

It's a common practice. Back in 2008, researchers at Rutgers University noted that 53 percent of college students said they "engage in risky eating behaviors like eating raw/undercooked foods of animal origin that put them at increased risk for foodborne illnesses." That finding was published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Anahad O'Connor wrote in the New York Times blog, Well, that some of those sickened "bought the contaminated cookie dough with the sole intention of eating it raw."

O'Connor noted that "as with many commercial food products, the eggs used in the contaminated cookie dough were pasteurized, a process that kills pathogens. The molasses, sugar, baking soda and margarine used in the dough also underwent 'pathogen kill steps' during processing that made them unlikely to be sources of the contamination, and the chocolate chips used in the dough revealed no evidence of E. coli, the researchers found."

E. coli has been found before in flour samples.

Cookie dough made at home is more likely to pose a risk from salmonella.

"It's diffiult to do a direct comparison of the risks," Dr. Karen P. Neil, lead investigator in the study, told the New York Times. "But the bottom line is consumers should not eat raw cookie dough, or really any other raw product that's intended to be baked or cooked before consumption."

She added that cooks should practice good safety measures: "clean, separate, cook and chill." And she said more information is online at the government's food safety website.

EMAIL: lois@desnews.com