Ben & Jerry's Paved The Way For Edible Cookie Dough

It is a nostalgia-inducing act to dig into a freshly mixed batch of raw cookie dough. Many of us have taken quite a few sneaky licks from a dough-covered spatula in our time, whether as rebellious children or as adults exercising our free will. But while it is tempting to always take a taste of freshly mixed cookie batter, the practice is pretty unsafe. According to Houston Methodist, eating fresh cookie batter puts you at risk of contracting salmonella. The raw eggs mixed into the dough can be contaminated with the illness-causing bacteria, according to the site, and can put the consumer at increased chance of getting food poisoning.

However, we all know eating raw cookie dough is an obvious joy that is hard to resist. So, it was long overdue to finally have safe, edible cookie dough hitting grocery store shelves in recent years, and these completely safe products have been becoming increasingly popular, according to DoDo Cookie Dough.

While edible cookie dough has seen a large demand in the past few years, we have Ben & Jerry's to thank for pioneering the first edible cookie dough to hit the market.

According to a People, who cites a press release, Ben & Jerry's was the first-ever brand to release ice cream pints with edible cookie dough packed inside. In the 1980s, the company was inspired to make the flavor from the suggestion of an enthusiastic fan. According to the Ben & Jerry's site, the pioneering flavor was sold at their original location in Burlington, Vermont in 1984 and was so popular it hit grocery store shelves a few years later in 1991.

Since the 1990s, the brand has released plenty of cookie dough options that elevate the original chocolate chip cookie dough flavor. In 2017, for instance, the brand released pint slices that featured the original chocolate chip cookie dough flavor in a puck-like shape covered in milk chocolate. (via Ben & Jerry's). In 2019, a vegan-friendly version hit the market along with the brand's now-popular cookie dough core pints, which featured three cookie dough flavors in the center of the pints.

Of course, other brands have adopted the cookie dough flavor to their collections, and the flavor has spread both nationally around the globe. Whether you prefer to get your edible cookie dough fix from a pint of ice cream, make it at-home, or you enjoy the store-bought kind, consider this your sign to indulge in your cookie dough cravings.