How easy is it to get salmonella from eggs?

[KurtNYC]

I made almond gelato with chocolate chips last week -- used one uncooked egg (as per the recipe) and I was fine. The package has a big old warning that says never to eat eggs that are less than 100% cooked. It seems like this would prohibit "eggs over easy" and yet you can order them that way in restaurants.

I saw one stat that said 1 in 10,000 eggs is contaminated with a strain of salmonella that lives inside the shell in either the white or yolk of the egg. There are tons of recipes that call for basically uncooked eggs - mayonaise, sabayon, ice cream. And the Japanese and Koreans bust raw eggs over noodles dishes.

Anyone had salmonella? or any thoughts on how to get around the issue?

[GOPisEvil]

1. It's very rare.

If you want to protect yourself, use pasteurized eggs.

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. I've been munching on raw cookie dough for 36 years and

never had a problem. But I'm a risk taker. ;)

[purr]

8. I do that!! Good stuff!

Also - raw brownies, raw cake mix, and I just LOVE rare steak.

mmmmm... getting hungry now

[Pacifist Patriot]

9. Ew, you got me on the rare steak.

vegetarian don't you know? You should see my wrinkled nose. *shiver* LOL!

[purr]

15. Sorry :) I was borderline vegetarian for awhile - only ate

chicken (rarely) and was considering cutting it out. Then I got preg. with my daughter and I couldnt get enough steak. Never lost that craving.

[mainegreen]

3. Dont worry

At some point in your life food will make you sick and you'll vomit endlessly for 2-3 days. Its all part of the package!

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[hobbit709]

4. Basically

they put the warnings on to cover their butts. If you take eggs straight out of the fridge, use them and then immediately chill the dish, you have a better chance of getting hit by a car.

[Lindacooks]

13. WRONG.

Why don't people understand this??

"In the USA, it is estimated that there are 2 to 4 million cases of salmonellosis every year. This number has been increasing over the past 10 years."


(http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/chap1.html)

FOOD POISONING CAUSES 5,000 DEATHS IN THIS COUNTRY EVERY YEAR!!

[Kraklen]

16. Alright, now divide that 2 to four million...

by the seven billion eggs consumed per year.

[leftofthedial]

20. really, you should divide it by the number of people who eat eggs.

I think the danger is exagerrated, but it's still a concern.

[Kraklen]

26. Disagree.

The person who eats more eggs is in greater risk than the person that eats few eggs. Plus, as the poster below points out, it includes meat, chicken, and fish. So it's really pretty rare.

Agreed that it's a concern. Please use Pasteurized eggs people.

[KurtNYC]

21. That number includes cases from meat (chicken)

and I have seen the ways that people cross-contaminate their kitchen so I'm not surprised.

[Lindacooks]

24. I don't care how many you divide it by,

5,000 deaths from food poisoning is a national disgsrace. Whether you get food poisoning from eggs, fruit, meat, or not washing your hands while preparing food, it is a PREVENTABLE fatal illness. There's no point in taking a chance with food. NONE.

[Maddy McCall]

5. Lots of people have had salmonella and didn't even know it.

Probaby thought they had a stomach virus or an upset stomach.

From what I understand, salmonella is not a large concern. I wouldn't worry about it...I don't eat RAW eggs, but, like you said, I like them overeasy or sunny-side up.

I use egg whites in merangues.

I don't know anyone who's ever been diagnosed with salmonella. But just because they haven't been diagnosed doesn't mean that they didn't have it...a healthy adult would probaby just think that they had a tummy virus.

[GumboYaYa]

6. I had salmonella, but not from eggs.

It was the most horrible thing I have ever experienced. 1 in 10,000 is too good of odds for me given how bad that type of food poisoning is.

[wideopen]

7. Atlon Brown says

it's damn near impossible w/store bought eggs. He gave the reasoning behind it but I don't recall what it was.

[ihaveaquestion]

12. Commercial chickens are heavily dosed with antibiotics.

To keep them from getting sick and wiping out the flock, considering their close quarters and all. This pretty much wipes out any trace of Salmonella and other minor bacteria.

[Kraklen]

10. Pretty rare.

But you really, really don't want to get it.

[Lindacooks]

11. As a Food Scientist, I say:

do not eat raw eggs unless they are pasteurized. The risk is just too great, especially if someone you are feeding is in a high risk group: small child, elderly person, pregnant woman, anyone with a chronic illness or someone with a suppressed immune system.

I have had salmonella as a child, and the experience felt as close to death as anything that has happened to me since. It is a horrible disease, and you get very sick - you can pass out as you vomit, which of course means you could aspirate the vomit and get pneumonia.

"Incidence (annual) of Salmonella food poisoning: estimated 1.4 million cases (CDC estimate/NIAID, many unreported)

Incidence extrapolations for USA for Salmonella food poisoning: 1,400,000 per year, 116,666 per month, 26,923 per week, 3,835 per day, 159 per hour, 2 per minute, 0 per second.

Undiagnosed prevalence of Salmonella food poisoning: up to 1.4 million cases (CDC/NAID); estimated that only 2% of cases are reported to CDC

Every year, approximately 40,000 cases of salmonellosis are reported in the United States. Because many milder cases are not diagnosed or reported, the actual number of infections may be twenty or more times greater.1 ... An estimated 1.4 million cases occur annually in the United States; of these, approximately 40,000 are culture-confirmed cases reported to CDC. 2

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/s/salmonella_food_poisoning/prevalence.htm

In the USA, it is estimated that there are 2 to 4 million cases of salmonellosis every year. This number has been increasing over the past 10 years.

http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/chap1.html

[GumboYaYa]

14. When I had it, I lost over twenty pounds in five days, almost all of it

fluid. I laid on the bathroom floor for those five days in excrutiating pain thinking I just had a bad stomach virus that would go away. When I finally went to the doctor, they had me on IVs for a few days to get me to the point where I could hold liquids. It was the most pain I have experienced.

[Lindacooks]

22. Yep, it's absolutely terrible.

Yet people think because it hasn't happened to them yet, it won't happen. This is my crusade - to educate people about food safety. The cookbooks I have written stress food safety. It's a really big problem that most people don't understand.

[GumboYaYa]

27. Until you experience a severe case, it is easy to be flippant.

For me there is no way on this Earth that I would eat a raw egg. I'm absolutely obsessive about keeping the kitchen germ free.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

23. I had amoebic dystentery

Picked it up in the Amazon jungle years ago, and when my husband got salmonella, he was every bit as sick as I had been all those years ago.

I would never eat a raw egg, anywhere, under any conditions. We even pasteurize our own eggs at home - the eggs we buy at Whole Foods, the ones without antibiotics and such.

Salmonella is no minor matter, you are so right.

[Shell Beau]

17. Caesar dressing uses raw egg.

I always lick the beaters after mixing cake or brownie mix. Life is too short to worry about that.

[Lindacooks]

25. Well, your life may BE shortened because you don't worry about that.

But if you're an educated consumer who chooses to take that chance, that's fine by me. What gets me is when people serve potentially lethal food to those who don't have a choice and don't understand the risks and are in a high risk group. That is a sin.

[Shell Beau]

28. I certainly think everyone should be aware of the risks,

but there are so many things out there that can kill you that I choose not to worry about things such as this. The worrying could kill me. I just am a person who doesn't worry about these type of things.

[KurtNYC]

29. That is the crux of my concern

How do you tell someone - hey I made some delicious ice cream but you are taking a 1 in 10,000 shot at salmonella if you eat some.

If I got from my own cooking that's one thing but if someone else got it from my cooking it would be extremely difficult to live with.

[AllegroRondo]

18. You can buy pasteurized eggs

virtually no chance of salmonella there.

[leftofthedial]

19. it's very easy if the eggs are infected

but impossible if they aren't

it's rare

[sybylla]

30. Eggs are pasturized at relatively low temps

My SO has programmed food processing systems that pasteurize liquid eggs and they do it at a relatively low temp (100-120 degrees IIRC). You have to pasteurize at a low temp or you cook the eggs.

So you can eat your eggs sunny side up and not get sick.

If you want to eat cookie dough, buy the pasturized eggs in cartons for baking or watch for pasteurized eggs to appear in the ingredient list of prepackaged cookie dough.

Unfortunately, many cookie dough manufacturers are getting cheap and not using pasteurized eggs to cut costs. Seems stupid to me because if they used pasteurized eggs, I and probably a lot of other people would buy more packaged cookie dough for munchies.

[Rowdyboy]

31. My immune system is not the best so I asked my doctor.....

She told me not to worry at all.