Prairie Fare: Before licking the spoon, consider facts about flour and oatmeal

“I thought that eggs were the problem in raw cookie dough!” someone exclaimed to me after a webinar. “Now the flour can make us sick?”

“Yes, we have to be careful with flour,” I replied.

“Flour is a raw commodity, and some outbreaks have occurred due to Salmonella and E. coli bacteria in uncooked food containing flour,” I noted.

Eating raw cookie dough is not advised for safety reasons, with an exception.

If you love commercially made cookie dough ice cream, you can safely eat it. The cookie dough has been made with pasteurized eggs and heat-treated flour.

You will notice food safety labels on ready-to-bake cookies. These cookies are not meant to be eaten out of the container, unless it is “edible cookie dough.”

“Should I be heating the oatmeal before I make unbaked cookies?” my coll