Just in time for the holiday baking season, the Center for Disease Control is telling Americans to stop eating raw cookie dough.
Eating dough raw can increase the risk of food-borne illnesses, the agency warns, including salmonella infections, which humans can contract after eating raw eggs.
But don't worry, food critic and senior editor at The Atlantic Corby Kummer said there's an alternative: You can also make your dough with imitation eggs, like the brandJUST Egg, which makes its product from mung beans.
"You could get sick from raw egg for sure, which is why you want JUST Egg, or the easy alternative: Buy a carton of pasteurized eggs, which is easy to get in the supermarket," Kummer told Boston Public Radio Tuesday.
Raw egg isn't the only component in cookie dough that can make you sick. Raw flour can also contain bacteria like Escherichia coli, or E.coli, if animal waste contaminates the grain from which the flour is milled. But Kummer said there are ways to get around that, too.
"[Contamination] can be a problem because flour hasn't been treated, unless it's in like Ben & Jerry's cookie dough. They buy treated cookie dough," Kummer said.
