"Is raw flour really dangerous? I've been eating cookie dough for years."

"Yes, raw flour is a documented E. coli O157:H7 source, and outbreaks from it are real and recent. Many people eat raw dough their whole lives without getting sick because contaminated flour is not universal — it varies by lot and production date. But the 2016 outbreak from General Mills flour confirmed that flour can be contaminated and can make people seriously ill. The risk is real, even if you haven't personally experienced it."

"If I use pasteurized eggs, is the dough safe to eat?"

"Pasteurized eggs address the Salmonella risk from eggs. They don't address the E. coli risk from raw flour. For safe-to-eat raw dough, you need both pasteurized eggs AND heat-treated flour. Using pasteurized eggs in otherwise conventional cookie dough doesn't make it safe."

"How do I heat-treat flour at home?"

"Spread the flour in a thin layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 350°F for 5 minutes. Let it cool completely. A food thermometer should confirm the flour reached 165°F. Alternatively, microwave it in a bowl in 15-second intervals, stirring between each, until the flour reaches 165°F throughout. Let it cool before using."

"Are commercial cookie dough products safe to eat raw?"

"Only if specifically labeled as 'edible,' 'safe to eat raw,' or 'ready to eat.' Commercial dough not labeled this way — the tube of refrigerated cookie dough for baking — is not meant to be eaten raw and doesn't have the heat-treated flour and pasteurized eggs that edible versions do. Check the label before eating."

Raw Cookie Dough: The Flour Risk Nobody Warned You About

Quick Answer

Raw cookie dough is unsafe because raw flour can contain E. coli O157:H7, and raw eggs can contain Salmonella. Flour is a raw agricultural product with no kill step — it goes from grain to bag without any treatment to eliminate pathogens. The 2016 General Mills flour recall involved E. coli contamination that sickened 45 people in 21 states. Baking eliminates both risks. Eating dough raw does not.

The Science

Somewhere along the way, eating raw cookie dough became a casual habit — a spoon of batter while baking, a bite of refrigerator dough, a commercial product bought specifically to eat cold. The standard warning has always been about eggs. The bigger current risk is the flour.

The Egg Risk Everyone Knows

Salmonella Enteritidis can infect a hen’s ovaries and be deposited inside the egg before the shell forms. An infected egg looks completely normal. Cooking to 160°F kills Salmonella in eggs, but eating the egg raw means eating whatever Salmonella might be present.

About 1 in 20,000 eggs carries internal Salmonella contamination. That sounds low, and for any given egg, it is. But if you regularly taste raw dough made with multiple eggs, the cumulative exposure adds up, and the Salmonella risk in raw eggs is real if not dramatic.

Pasteurized eggs exist for exactly this use case. The pasteurization process (controlled heat that kills Salmonella without fully cooking the egg) makes eggs safe for raw consumption. Commercial edible cookie dough products use pasteurized eggs.

The Flour Risk Almost Nobody Talks About

In 2016, General Mills recalled 10 million pounds of flour after the CDC linked it to an E. coli O121 outbreak. Forty-five people across 21 states were infected. Ten were hospitalized. None died, but E. coli O157:H7 and related strains can cause hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a life-threatening kidney complication.

The source: contaminated flour.

Flour is a raw agricultural product. Grain is grown in fields, harvested, milled, and packaged. There is no step in this process — no heat treatment, no irradiation, no chemical treatment — that kills pathogens before the flour reaches your bag at the grocery store.

Grain grows in fields where animals pass through, where contaminated irrigation water reaches crops, where bird feces land. E. coli from animal feces contaminate grain in the field. The milling process doesn’t kill bacteria — it just grinds the grain smaller. The bacteria survive into the finished flour.

The FDA’s warning is explicit: raw flour is not safe to eat. This includes flour in uncooked dough, unbaked batters, and any preparation where flour hasn’t been cooked.

In 2019, another E. coli outbreak was linked to raw cookie dough from a grocery store bakery. More hospitalizations. More confirmation that flour contamination is not a 2016-specific anomaly.

Baking Solves Both Problems

At 350°F (typical cookie baking temperature), the interior of a cookie reaches well above 165°F — the temperature that kills both Salmonella and E. coli reliably. Baking is a complete kill step for both pathogens.

The problem is the window before baking: licking the spoon, tasting the batter to check sweetness, snacking from the raw dough. This is when exposure happens. The baked cookie is safe. Everything before baking is not.

Kids are a particular concern. Young children are at higher risk of severe E. coli O157:H7 illness, including HUS. The CDC specifically warns against letting children taste raw batter or dough, or play with raw dough as a crafting material (a practice that’s led to illness from flour exposure).

Making Dough That’s Actually Safe to Eat Raw

If you want cookie dough that’s safe to eat without baking, you need to address both risks:

Step 1: Heat-treat the flour. Spread flour in a thin layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake at 350°F for 5 minutes. The goal is to bring the flour to 165°F throughout. Let it cool completely before using. Alternatively, microwave the flour in a bowl in 15-second intervals, stirring between each, until a food thermometer inserted into the flour reads 165°F.

Step 2: Use pasteurized eggs (or omit eggs). Many edible cookie dough recipes omit eggs entirely since the egg provides binding and leavening that’s irrelevant for dough you won’t bake. If you want the richness eggs provide, use pasteurized eggs.

Commercial “edible cookie dough” products labeled as such do both of these things. The label matters — refrigerator-case cookie dough in tubes meant for baking (Pillsbury, etc.) is not formulated to be eaten raw.

Why flour outbreaks are hard to trace

Flour outbreaks present an unusual epidemiological challenge. Flour is used in thousands of different products and preparations. When people get sick from E. coli, they’re asked what they ate in the previous 7 days. “I cooked with flour” isn’t something most people think to report, because flour doesn’t seem like a food safety risk — it’s dry, shelf-stable, and generally cooked before eating.

The 2016 outbreak was solved through consumer interviews specifically asking about flour and cookie dough, and through DNA fingerprinting that linked patient isolates to flour samples from the same production lots. The investigation took months.

The difficulty of tracing flour outbreaks may mean that flour is responsible for more E. coli cases than official records show. Unlike ground beef or raw produce, flour is rarely considered a suspect early in an outbreak investigation.

The FDA’s introduction of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule includes requirements for grain handling that may reduce field contamination over time. For now, treat all raw flour as a potential E. coli source.

The Simple Rule

Dough that’s going into the oven: safe to bake, not safe to eat raw.

Dough that’s being made specifically to eat raw: heat-treat the flour, use pasteurized eggs (or no eggs), and then eat freely.

The distinction between “baking dough” and “edible dough” is real and matters. A tube of refrigerator cookie dough from the baking aisle and a jar of edible cookie dough from the dessert section are different products made with different safety processes. Check the label.

The E. coli article covers the biology of E. coli O157:H7 and why it’s particularly dangerous. The raw eggs safety article covers the Salmonella risk from eggs in more depth, including the statistics on how often eggs are actually contaminated.

What This Means for You

If you want safe-to-eat cookie dough, heat-treat the flour first (bake at 350°F for 5 minutes, cool) and use pasteurized eggs. Commercial 'edible cookie dough' products do both of these things. For regular baking, the rule is simple: don't taste the batter until it's baked.