The biggest concern about eating raw eggs is whether doing so can harm your health. This is a valid concern because raw eggs can hurt you if they contain bad bacteria known as salmonella. Salmonella is the group of bacteria most commonly responsible for causing food poisoning.
This foodborne illness occurs quickly and causes uncomfortable symptoms like abdominal cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting.
These symptoms tend to last about four to seven days, and most people start feeling better without any treatment. But some people can experience more severe symptoms that require hospitalization. Serious cases of food poisoning need to be treated as quickly as possible to prevent the salmonella infection from spreading to the bloodstream and other sites within the body.
Salmonella bacteria can be killed with heat or changes in pH, such as the pickling or curing processes that alter the acid-alkaline balance of foods. Because raw eggs haven’t encountered any heat or changes to their pH, consuming raw eggs puts you at risk of contracting food poisoning from salmonella.
Cooking eggs is, of course, the simplest and easiest way to kill salmonella and ensure your meal’s safety. Most people also prefer cooking their eggs because raw eggs have a potentially off-putting texture that makes eating raw eggs far less tempting.
Cooking your eggs is a good food safety habit to get into because the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that one egg out of every 20,000 eggs may be contaminated with salmonella. Although these odds may sound low, consuming raw eggs is not worth the risk of suffering from food poisoning symptoms like digestive system issues
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