(CNN) – This holiday season, you might find yourself whipping up a batch of delicious cookies in the kitchen, but you may want to think twice before reaching for a taste of that raw dough.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is using this holiday season to remind all the bakers out there that eating or tasting unbaked products can make you sick.
Flour and raw eggs can contain bacteria and salmonella, respectively.
Flour is typically a raw agricultural product. This means it hasn’t been treated to kill germs such as E. coli. Harmful germs can contaminate grain while it’s still in the field or at other steps as flour is produced. The bacteria are killed when food made with flour is cooked. This is why you should never taste or eat raw dough or batter—whether made from recalled flour or any other flour, the CDC says. In 2016, an outbreak of E. coli infections linked to raw flour made 63 people sick.
So, as much as you may want to sneak a taste, it’s better for your health to wait until the treats are fully cooked.
The CDC has a full list of safe food handling practices on its website.
