Raw Flour in Cookie Dough: A Surprising Source of Illness 

Unbaked cookie dough is often irresistible. Kids love its taste and texture while adults may take a bite out of nostalgia. Although it’s an understandable guilty pleasure, eating raw batter is as unsafe as it is naughty. 

Uncooked dough and batter contain several potentially harmful ingredients — one of them is raw flour. When part of the recipe, it can render edible cookie dough uneatable and will put your family at risk. Here’s why raw flour can get you sick and how to protect your family. 

Inedibility of Raw Flour 

Raw flour can harbor vicious pathogens like Salmonella and Escherichia coli (E. coli). This fact may astound health-conscious individuals because this food has low moisture content. Generally, dry and packaged goods are free from germs and therefore safe to eat. However, harmful microbes may contaminate flour sources — such as wheat, barley, and buckwheat — in the field and find their way to consumers' kitchens. 

If uncooked grains are health hazards, so are their raw derivatives. The germs in grains survive the processes involved in making flour. Grinding grains and bleaching flour are ineffective in making the final product safer for consumption. Pathogens wind up in bags of flour and baking mixes as a result. 

Unbaked goodies, such as breads, muffins, cookies, pancakes, cakes, pizza, and brownies — are only edible when heated adequately. The same logic applies to holiday ornaments, play dough, and other crafts made of raw flour. Mixing raw flour-containing items with homemade ingredients for milkshakes and ice cream is ill-advised, too. 

Store-bought edible cookie dough and brownie batter — with or without gluten — can be safe to eat when their label says so. Their manufacturers heat-treat flour and pasteurize eggs to kill bacterial toxins. 

Raw Flour Consumption Consequences 

Ingesting raw flour — regardless of the amount — may result in food poisoning. The symptoms you may experience depend on the bacteria entering your body, but you’ll almost certainly have a fever and diarrhea. It may take ten days for your body to beat an E. coli infection, while Salmonella may cause you to feel under the weather for a week. 

Replenishing your body’s lost fluids and electrolytes and resting to alleviate the symptoms are the best things you can do while feeling unwell for four to seven days. As you recover, eating lean proteins like tofu gives your digestive system a break. 

Proper Handling of Raw Flour 

Trying raw dough or batter before it’s fully baked can be as dangerous as tasting it from the bowl or licking the spatula. However, you may still ingest it unintentionally when you inadequately clean yourself and your kitchen after baking. To stay safe when handling raw flour or unbaked dough or batter, follow these tips: 

• Read the instructions on the package of flour-containing products to know to what degree to cook them and for how long. 
• Store flour from ready-to-eat foods to prevent cross-contamination. 
• Keep raw dough from kids, especially when making crafts. 
• Wash all surfaces and baking tools with warm, soapy water. 

• Clean your hands thoroughly with soap and running water. 
• Refrigerate leftover dough or batter at 40 degrees Fahrenheit. 
• Throw away recalled flour. 

Flourless Edible Cookie Dough Recipe  

If you want to make edible cookie dough to satisfy your cravings without jeopardizing your family’s health, go flourless — and eggless. You can pull this off using rolled oats as an alternative to raw flour. Unlike other uncooked foods, rolled oats are safe to eat raw. They get their name from being steamed and flattened after losing their husk, so they undergo heat treatment before packing. 

To make this tasty treat: 

1. Grind 1 ½ cups of rolled oats using a food processor. Set aside them when they’re powdery.  
2. Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, make a cream out of 1 ½ sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature, ½ cup of white sugar and ¼ cup of light brown sugar for about two minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed. 
3. Afterward, add a teaspoon of vanilla extract to your batter until mixed.  
4. Then, put the ground oats and a quarter of a teaspoon of kosher salt in the batter until mixed.  
5. Lastly, combine 1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips with your batter, and voila! You can now enjoy genuinely edible cookie dough. You can immediately consume the mix, but refrigerate or freeze it if you want a doughy texture. 

This no-bake recipe is doable in 10 minutes and makes eight servings. If you want to have 16 or 24 scoops out of it, double or triple the amount of ingredients, respectively.  

Stay Safe From Raw Flour 

An ounce of prevention is worth more than a spoonful of inedible cookie dough. Resisting the urge to nibble at unbaked batter with raw flour is a small sacrifice to protect your family’s health.