People always freak out about eating raw cookie dough for fear of salmonella due to the raw eggs.
Yet raw egg whites have been a common ingredient in fancy cocktails for ages and its never been questioned or regarded as dangerous.
What gives?
In: Biology
They put that on cookie dough containers so that those companies aren’t liable if you get sick. But, in general, raw egg is pretty safe in moderation. The uncooked flour in the dough is probably more dangerous than the egg.
I make ice cream using raw egg all the time. Mayonnaise is also made with raw egg, if you make it at home.
The realistic is that eating raw eggs is actually quite safe. There’s an extremely small chance the egg could have some issue (generally salmonella), but its incredibly small as there is tons of processes in place from the farm all the way until it arrives in your fridge at home designed to keep eggs safe to eat, even raw.
The prohibition and fear of raw eggs is an insane, and almost completely unfounded overreaction.
Food microbiologist here.
A lot of people have already commented on the cookie dough part, so I’ll leave that alone. I’ll try and give some insight into the egg vs. egg white part that u/trashpersonalert asked about as well.
In chickens, if it is infected with *Salmonella* species such as Enteriditis, Typhimurium, Heidelberg, the bacteria can colonize the ovaries of the chicken. The ovary is where the **yolk** is stored before being released down the oviduct, where the rest of the egg forms. So the bacteria will colonize within the yolk, making the yolk from an infected chicken unsafe*. (See below)
Even if there is bacteria in the egg white, the egg white itself contains very little nutrition for bacteria and so growth is unlikely. The yolk, on the other hand, is plenty nutritious for the bacteria.
So egg whites are generally safer to consume, but unless you are severely immunocompromised, or consume a massive quantities of eggs, or a rotten egg, chances are you’ll be ok.
Another thing to note about the cookie dough, all the sugar and other components make it ripe for bacterial growth. So even if the eggs used to make cookie dough have a very low number of bacteria, over time that number will exponentially increased until it hits or exceeds the infective dose. Especially since *Salmonella* **can** grow at temperatures as low as 5 degrees C.
Edit: Formatting
You can buy pasteurized egg whites.
Also, raw eggs aren’t the only dangerous ingredient. Raw flour can be dangerous too.
The danger from eating raw cookie dough is from the flour, not necessarily the eggs. Raw flower can have ecoli and dangerous bacteria in it, since it’s just ground up grains and is not cooked or otherwise processed.
Bartender here.
TL;DR Eggs for cocktails are prepared(tested)
It’s not like there is no problem with using egg white (or even yolk) in cocktail. All depends what are the sanitary laws in your country. In Poland you need a certificate that the eggs were UV exposed. You can take this when buying eggs (for restaurant, bars etc) or doing it by yourself.
If you run some club and you don’t offer food, you aren’t allowed to make egg based cocktails, because you need permission for selling food. If you do sell food you need to take a lot of certificates from your sellers.
Because people make a big deal out of raw eggs for almost no reason.
1 in 20k eggs will have salmonella, about.
How many eggs have you eaten in your life?
I think raw flour is also a culprit. Flour needs to be sterilized for the bird and other animal shit.
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I heard that sign is not about raw eggs but about raw flour that might contain ecoli. The salmonella isnt actually in the eggs but rather on the shell.
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