Posted: August 25th, 2010 - 10:12am by Doug Powell

CNBC reports that experts have some simple advice when it comes to eating runny eggs these days: Run away.

With salmonella concerns triggering the recall of more than a half-billion eggs in more than a dozen states, warnings are becoming more dire every day against eating undercooked yolks and translucent egg whites.

But what's a home cook to do, especially when hit by cravings for eggs Benedict, pasta carbonara, homemade Caesar dressing or other dishes that call for raw or only slightly cooked eggs?

Drinking raw eggs for a protein boost? Even worse idea, given the risk of salmonella and its violent nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and temporary residency in the bathroom.

"We've got enough issues. Who needs to be barfing because of raw eggs?" asked Douglas Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University and author of BarfBlog.com, which highlights food-handling problems in the news and in popular culture.

He advises cooks to use a food thermometer in their frittatas, quiches and other egg dishes — and, in fact, when preparing meat or anything that poses dangers when undercooked.

Paul Stern, who cooks for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, an Ashford, Conn., camp for seriously ill children, many with compromised immune systems, said this year, the camp switched (before the recall) to pasteurized liquid egg product.

"I wouldn't be consuming or serving raw eggs any more than I'd be eating or serving raw chicken."