The report, which appeared in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, included the following findings:
- The study found a strong association between consumption of ready-to-bake cookie dough and illness
- Manufacturers should consider formulating ready-to-bake commercial
prepackaged cookie dough to be as safe as a ready-to-eat product
- Consumers need to be better educated about the risk of food poisoning from consuming raw, prepackaged cookie dough
The investigation found the culprit may be raw flour. Low levels of salmonella contamination can occur in flour and flour-based mixes, which have been implicated in salmonella outbreaks.
According to the report, the FDA has been advised that several cookie-dough makers have already switched to heat-treated flour.