The People's Pharmacy® with Joe and Terry Graedon

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Licking the Bowl Is Risky Business

Newspaper Columns, Pharmacy Q&A July 3, 2007

Q. When I was a child, my sister and I used to compete for first dibs on licking the bowl and beaters when Mother baked. It was a part of growing up.

Recently, I was baking with my grandchildren and asked which of them wanted to lick the bowl. Their mother, my daughter, swooped between them and me with the bowl, and said, "No! No! Don't put that in your mouth! It has raw eggs in it!" Do raw eggs--especially this minute amount--really hurt you? Or is my daughter just an especially picky mother? Why were my sister and I not damaged as kids by our bowl-licking habits?

A. You may think that your daughter is being especially picky, but she is actually following accepted recommendations for food safety. Back when you were little, nobody worried much about salmonella in raw eggs. Perhaps that was because eggs were less likely to be contaminated.

Food safety scientists might not have realized then that licking the bowl did make some children sick. It makes sense to be careful even though it means one of childhood's pleasures--licking the beaters--is taken away.

Pasteurized egg whites in liquid or powdered form are available. Your daughter shouldn’t object to the children licking the beaters if the eggs are pasteurized.