Ignore Those Rom Coms, Eating Raw Cookie Dough Will F*ck You Up

Who doesn’t love eating raw cookie dough or licking the spoon after making brownies? Apparently the FDA, who is now saying put the raw cookie dough down now and forever. Yes, even the vegan, eggless variety.

Apparently it’s no longer just salmonella you should be worried about. According to a new blog post by the FDA, the agency is now discouraging people from consuming raw dough of any variety because they now believe that raw flour of any brand could contain bacteria. This announcement follows a recent outbreak of E. coli believed to be tied to contaminated flour that has infected 38 people since last December. This led General Mills to conduct a voluntary recall of 10 million pounds of Gold Medal, Signature Kitchens and Gold Medal Wondra flour.

The problem with flour is that unlike other foods, there is no “kill-method.” In other words, there’s no sanitation that goes into raw flour. Raw flour comes directly from the field so anything, including animal waste as the FDA pointed out, could  be infecting it with bacteria. Cooking methods like frying, boiling, roasting, baking, and microwaving all count as kill methods which is why cooked dough is safe.

The FDA even discouraged parents from letting kids play with homemade playdough made with dough or doing any other flour crafts because even if kids are not directly consuming the playdough there’s a good chance a three-year-old is going to stick their hands in their mouth after playing with it and get sick.