Food Safety: General Mills Flour Recall Expanded

Confession: I love raw chocolate chip cookie dough; the baked cookies not so much. But this General Mills Gold Medal Flour recall is giving me pause to ever eating raw cookie dough again.

Facts

Flour is a raw ingredient that is intended to be cooked or baked.  Flour is made from wheat that is grown outdoors where bacteria are often present and the normal flour milling process does not remove these bacteria.

In order for severe E. coli illness to occur from flour, all three of the following things have to happen:

1. The flour a consumer is using has to contain the rare sub-types of E.coli that can make you sick.
2. The consumer has to eat raw dough, batter or other uncooked food made with the flour, or handle the raw dough and not wash their hands.
3. The consumer’s individual health characteristics will impact if they get sick and how severely. Some consumers have mild symptoms and others get very sick. It is not always known who will get sick and who will not.

This recall impacts the following products:  + some Betty Crocker cake mixes (view labels)