America to FDA: Yeah, we’ll get right on that.
The Food and Drug Administration just issued a warning against eating uncooked dough or batter because it can make people sick — and not due to raw eggs and salmonella.
The danger in your mixing bowl? Flour. As it happens, the pantry staple can carry a strain of E. coli, which as we all know can cause illness, infection and even death.
Investigators at the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have linked dozens of E. coli poisonings across the country to flour produced in a General Mills facility in Kansas City, Missouri. The company has issued a recall for Gold Medal, Signature Kitchen’s and Gold Medal Wondra brands. The CDC notes that the warning applies to non-food-related uses of flour, such as that cute DIY Play-Doh project you saw on Pinterest, while the FDA noted that commercial cookie-dough ice cream flavors are in the clear. Find complete consumer advice about the recall here.
So, flour — who knew, right?
“Flour is derived from a grain that comes directly from the field and typically is not treated to kill bacteria,” Leslie Smoot, of the FDA’s Office of Food Safety explained in the warning. Basically, what happens is animals roaming wheat fields poop, bacteria from the poop contaminates the grain, contaminated grain gets harvested and milled into flour, and your Saturday morning cookie-baking with the kids turns into a dangerous vector.
Moms, however, seem to be taking the news with about half a teaspoon of salt: Samara Friedman, an orthopedic surgeon in Cedar Knolls, N.J., who just made cakes for her kids’ birthdays, figures that by the time she bakes again this scare will be over. “A bag of flour is what, $2?” Friedman said. “I am planning on tossing whatever flour I have. Usually these E. coli contaminations pass. One day it’s peanut butter, then lettuce.”
Judith Weiss, of Millburn, N.J., read the FDA warning — and immediately decided to ignore it.
Baking with her 9-year-old son “really is all about the beater and licking the beater,” she told The Daily News. “The minute we stop cooking, it’s ‘How soon can I lick the spoon?’ and he has very little interest once it’s cooked.”
According to the unfazed mom, it’s all about choices. “I worry about Zika and I ride the train to Penn every day and I worry about terrorism,” Weiss said. “My son doesn’t sit in the front seat. He wears a seatbelt. He wears sun block. He can eat cookie dough!”
