Q&A: Cookie-dough dangers?

I know that I shouldn’t eat raw, homemade cookie dough because it contains uncooked eggs. What about the store-bought dough in slice-and-bake packages or cookie-dough ice cream? —M.B., Ossining, N.Y.

Eating anything containing raw eggs may in rare cases result in salmonella poisoning, which can cause fever, diarrhea, and cramps in healthy people and may be life threatening in people with compromised immune systems. But pasteurized eggs, which are briefly exposed to germ-killing temperatures, don’t carry that risk. The cookie dough in ice cream and most slice-and-bake cookie varieties is usually made with pasteurized eggs, but check that the label indicates this before eating them.

Read more on the dos and don'ts  egg safety and find out how to avoid food poisoning.

Photo courtesy of jules:stonesoup

Comments

[Kiesa]

My mom loves eating cookie dough so she never adds the eggs to her chocolate chip cookie recipe. Instead she just adds a tablespoon of water. They don't have as long of a shelf life but if you eat the cookies immediately after they come out of the oven it's hard to tell the difference.