Find out: is it safe to eat raw flour?

Find out if it safe to snack on some cookie dough or batter

Of course we know that you wouldn’t just grab a bag of flour to snack on like you would with chips. But haven’t we all been tempted to just eat a little bit of that delicious cookie dough when we were baking cookies? Or to lick the spatula when making brownies? And cookie dough or brownie batter is filled with raw flour. So, find out whether it is safe to snack on raw flour when you’re baking.
Safe
Let’s just rip the band-aid off right away: no, it is not safe to eat raw flour. When flour is made, the grains that are used can be exposed to bacteria. And that means that there is a chance of getting sick when you eat flour. Whenever you eat flour that has been contaminated with E.coli or salmonella, you can get food poisoning. And that is especially dangerous for children and people older than sixty-five.

Alternatives
If you really, really can’t resist the temptation of eating cookie dough and batter, you could use some alternatives to make things a little bit safer for yourself. You can easily make heat-treated flour at home. When you cook the flour by itself before using it, you kill the bacteria that might possibly have contaminated it. That means that you’ll be able to safely eat the cookie dough without the risk of getting sick. All you have to do is spread some flour on a sheet pan and bake it for seven minutes on 350 degrees Fahrenheit. This also goes for packaged mixes that you can buy at the grocery store. Like boxed mixes for brownies or cookies.

So, it is not safe to eat raw flour. But luckily, you don’t have to swear off cookie dough and batter completely. And we think that is just really good news!