Has anyone ever gotten Salmonella from raw cookie dough, or are people just trying to stop me from living my life?

I got it from chicken that wasn’t cooked well. Trust me, salmonella poisoning SUCKS. Unless you have a fetish for throwing up and shitting 15 times in like two hours.
I’ve also heard plenty of times that you can get it from raw cookie dough, but I confirm nothing.

You caught me. I do have that fetish.

Oh do you…hm…erm. You and I have much to discuss.

What discussion could that possibly bring up?

I wish I had an answer to that.

sorry to interrupt

Salmonella can be found in eggs. Cookies contain eggs, right? So it is possible. I don’t know how much salmonella is in eggs these days as they have tried to eradicate it. If there is no danger, you will probably be ok. But there is always a risk.

The primary reason for the increased risk vs. a home cooked egg has to do with volume.

Processing plants make things in HUGE batches. This includes cookie dough. If there are a small number of eggs containing salmonella and they’re mixed in with hundreds of others, then you’ve got a huge contaminated batch which is used to make all the thousands of smaller units for sale to consumers.

See the problem there?

However, apparently there are some companies who make cookie dough for consumption raw because people like it so much. They use eggs which have been either cooked or irradiated to eliminate the Salmonella risk.

But if you try to use that stuff to bake cookies they’ll turn out hard and flat because its the uncooked eggs which give tenderness and rise to cookies as they bake.

So, you can have this stuff if you really like eating raw cookie dough. You just can’t bake with it :)

Oh, and if you make your cookies from scratch rather than buying the premade cookie dough, that lessens the risk considerably.

And if you want to eliminate the risk altogether, you can now buy eggs which are Salmonella free at the market. I believe they’re irradiated or pasteurized. So, if you make your cookies from those eggs, you can sneak some if it raw.
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http://www.safeeggs.com/eggs/salmonella-eggs
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Ultimately it comes down to possible liability. If there’s even a slight chance you could contract salmonella from raw cookie dough then they’re going to put a warning on the packaging. If they didn’t then some jackass would inevitably sue because the package didn’t tell him to not eat the cookie dough raw. The warning’s just the company covering its ass.

I actually really hate raw cookie dough. I was just curious, because I’ve never met anyone who got salmonella before.

http://www.safeeggs.com/safest-choice-pasteurized-eggs/how-we-pasteurize-eggs
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Well, about 100,000 people get sick from salmonella every year in the US from eggs, so my guess is yes, people really have been sick from cookie dough that had the bacteria. You can buy pasteurized eggs as others suggested here. That’s what I do when my husband is in the mood for sunny side up eggs.

You could also buy egg beaters or egg whites in a carton that are pasteurized. If you aren’t baking them anyway you won’t taste a difference. It will make a difference in baking because the lack of the yolk will affect how the cookies rises.

If you are not making them from scratch, but rather buying the dough the manufacturer most likely uses pasteurized eggs and the chance of Salmonella is very low. Although, Tollhouse cookie dough had to recall at one point for E.coli contamination.

It sucks. Cookie dough is one of the best sweet treet cheats on the planet. The risks are low, but they are there.

@Buttonstc That’s not correct about the cookies being flat. That depends on the allover recipe. Pasteurized eggs are still “raw”. If I gave you a carton of pasteurized eggs you would never know it.

Let’s put the numbers in perspective. There are about 100,000 cases of Salmonella every year from raw eggs. If you get it you make many trips to the bathroom, but survive. There are about 400,000 cases of lung cancer ever year (96% were smokers). If you get it, there is a 50% chance you will die within a year. Which is worse? I know what I’d avoid.

Cookie dough is basically a blob of sugar, fat, and little egg protein Average it out and call it 7 calories per gram, (check the label.). so a one ounce of plop cookie dough is 200 calories. If that fits your lifestyle, go for it. It’s delicious.

It probably depends where the eggs come from. If they come from a big factory farm, somewhere along the way they probably get infected. If it’s a smaller farm with better controls most likely it’s safe. We ate raw cookie dough all the time as kids. The eggs came from our own chickens. No one ever got sick.

Of course it’s happened, but more people that eat cookie dough end up alright compared to those that get sick. People can get sick from fully cooked chicken and about a million other things, but people still eat the stuff.

You only live once. I say eat the damn cookie dough.

I have also eaten tiramisu, and raw eggs on rice 2–3 times per week for breakfast for least 5 years and never got sick. Maybe that’s why I don’t worry about it.

@LuckyGuy Raw eggs on rice? Or, sunny side up with a raw yolk on rice?

If you need to get your raw cookie dough fix….I would opt for the store bought pre-made dough as that most likely is made with pasteurized eggs and you could also make your own with pasteurized eggs as well. But that could very well spoil yours and @Symbeline‘s thrill ride from getting salmonella in the process.

I have had salmonella from bad raw chicken and it was not fun. However, raw cookie dough makes it way to my mouth on occasion and I have never gotten sick from it.

I’ve never had salmonella, and I always eat raw cookie dough if it’s around. I don’t care what they say.

@JLeslie It was a raw egg that the cafeteria ladies would crack over our rice. It came with natto and miso soup. They fed thousands of people like that every day – fast, fast.

I think the risk is higher with undercooked meats than eggs.
I have never had an issue and, I kept a flock of laying hens for years. The freshly laid eggs often had some poop on them, you wash them in warm water so the shell does not contract and absorb any bacteria, however…the membrane lining is a barrier as well.
I have eaten plenty of cookie dough over the years and I think the odds are pretty small of contracting Salmonella.

Now, the time I collected eggs and gathered one that was near hatching, must have overlooked it, and cracked an almost ready to hatch chick in the frying pan….now THAT was disgusting! lol

Mmm. Cookie dough! I’ll take the risk!

@JLeslie

You wrote: “That’s not correct about the cookies being flat. That depends on the allover recipe. Pasteurized eggs are still “raw”. If I gave you a carton of pasteurized eggs you would never know it.”

Just to clarify: if you read all of my post, you’ll see that I was referencing the fact that a few companies make safe cookie dough for eating. These are PREMADE specifically for people who like eating raw cookie dough. If you try to use it for baking, they’ll come out flat.

I stated that one can make their own cookies from pasteurized eggs, so of course they’ll rise properly. Why on earth wouldn’t they?

@Buttonstc I see what you are saying now. It seemed to me you were saying the premade cookie dough won’t rise properly. You mean the premade that is specifcally to eat as dough. What confused me was there are plenty of raw cookie doughs sold that are for baking, but it is commonly known a lot of it is eaten raw. I think it might say on the package that it is not to be consumed raw, but I am pretty sure all of them use pasteurized eggs anyway.

I really don’t know one way or the other. But, better safe than sorry.

I don’t like raw cookie dough other than to lick the spoon so I certainly wouldn’t be buying any premade specifically to eat, that’s for sure.

But obviously there’s a market for it. And someone is making money selling it. ;) go figure.

If you use powdered egg substitute you can have all the raw cookie dough you want, my friend does that for her daughter.

I love that you’re asking this even though you don’t like cookie dough :]

I was really kind of joking. Hence the “or are people just trying to stop me from living my life?” part. But I’m learning, anyways. So it’s cool.

I learned about the existence of pasteurised eggs. Magic!