The FDA's latest warning on raw cookie dough, issued just in time for Christmas, is providing plenty of food for thought – one thought being: Who has time to devote to such absurd warnings?
Eating raw dough or batter – whether it's for bread, cookies, pizza or tortillas – could make individuals sick, says Jenny Scott, a senior advisor in FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
According to Scott, the bottom line for parents and their children is: don't eat raw dough. And even though there are websites devoted to "flour crafts," don't allow children to play with raw dough or baking mixes that contain flour. Why?
"Flour, regardless of the brand, can contain bacteria that cause disease," the FDA explains. "In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local officials, investigated an outbreak of infections that illustrated the dangers of eating raw dough. Dozens of people across the country were sickened by a strain of bacteria called Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O121."
The investigation found that raw dough eaten or handled by some of the patients was made with flour found in subsequent tests by the FDA to have the same bacterium that was making people sick. Ten million pounds of flour were recalled, including unbleached, all-purpose, and self-rising varieties.
Some of the recalled flours had been sold to restaurants that allow children to play with dough made from the raw flour while waiting for their meals. CDC advises restaurants not to give customers raw dough – and the FDA offers a similar discouraging word to childcare facilities and preschools that let children play with raw dough.
OneNewsNow sought reaction from Julie Gunlock, director of the Culture of Alarmism Project at the Independent Women's Forum.
"The Food and Drug Administration's latest warning not to eat raw cookie dough should have all Americans worried – not about the dangers posed by raw cookie dough, which are minuscule for otherwise healthy people, but about a government that has grown so large that it has time to issue absurd health warnings while treating free citizens like they are simple children incapable of measuring risk," responds Gunlock.
"Clearly it's time to cut government if federal agencies have time to cook up alerts on nonsense like this."
Writing about the FDA's "cookie dough" warning, Gunlock adds: "… The scolds at the Food and Drug Administration are warning Americans about the mortal danger associated with licking raw cookie dough off a wooden spoon. If that's not a sign from Santa that the government has gotten too big, what is?"