Can Cause Illness Larry Beuchat rarely eats raw sprouts. And nothing he has seen in his lab encourages him to eat more.
Raw sprouts are popular in salads, sandwiches and other foods.
They're also cooked as an ingredient in a number of foods, particularly stir-fried and sauteed dishes. The cooked sprouts don't worry Beuchat. But eating them raw, he says, poses a risk of food-borne illness. His research at the UGA Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement in Griffin, Ga., is at the heart of his concerns. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has concerns about raw sprouts as a source of food-borne illness.