Next time someone offers you a chance to sample some freshly prepared cookie dough or cake batter, and lick the bottom of the bowl, just say no. While raw eggs in the batter or dough have traditionally been a concern for their ability to transmit salmonella, the new concern is another key ingredient: raw flour. For their research, Samuel J. Crowe, Ph.D and his colleagues from the CDC, evaluated this outbreak of STEC linked to the contaminated flour. The study found that the risk of STEC producing E.Coli was increased with the three aforementioned brands of flour, as well as sampling uncooked cake batter or cookie dough. The particular bacterial strains were identified in the contaminated flour, which was confirmed by whole-genome sequencing, linking the strains from food samples and contaminated products.

Source: Forbes November 23, 2017 23:26 UTC