Fighting over the beaters after your mom whips up a batch of her famous cookies could be a thing of the past. The “dangers” of raw cookie dough have always been somewhat of an “old wives” tale. As children, we were alway cautioned that raw eggs could give you salmonella. While that fear’s still on the table, a new issue has now emerged with warnings about eating raw flour. Over 20 states have been affect, 38 people have been reported complaining of upset stomachs, vomiting, diarrhea, and in rare cases, kidney failure.
One More Reason to Be Gluten Free
As if you needed one more reason to cut down on your sweets, gluten, and grains. The FDA is reporting that flours have been found to contain E Coli strains. The CDC discovered the Shiga toxin (which produces E. coli O121) earlier in the month but it wasn’t until Wednesday that the FDA issued an official warning. This warning pertains to ALL raw doughs and batters. Everything from cookie dough, bread, pizza, tortillas, pancakes and more.
The E. coli breakout has already affected some 20 states and has led General Mills to do a massive recall on over 10 million pounds of flour (the likely source of the outbreak).
The products were sold under the names Gold Medal, Signature Kitchen’s, and Gold Medal Wondra. At least 38 people have been infected with E. coli in the flour-related outbreak, including 10 people who were hospitalized, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (source).
The source of the flour was narrowed down to the General Mills factory in Kansas, Missouri.
Flour is derived from a grain that comes directly from the field and typically is not treated to kill bacteria,” Leslie Smoot, a senior adviser in FDA’s Office of Food Safety and a specialist in the microbiological safety of processed foods, said in a statement (source).
In order to avoid this wide spread outbreak, it is advised to cook all products containing flour by baking, boiling, frying and roasting. Heating the flour based food will destroy the E. coli bacteria. If you know others that would benefit from this article, please share it with them using the links above!
Adria Ali
Leave a Reply