NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Efforts to teach young adults about food safety may not be hitting home, a new study suggests.

Dr. Carol Byrd-Bredbenner of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and colleagues found that many college students engaged in eating behaviours that could make them sick, like eating raw homemade cookie dough or runny eggs.

While people are becoming increasingly aware of food safety issues, Byrd-Bredbenner and her team note, surveys still show a substantial proportion run the risk of food poisoning by eating raw eggs, undercooked hamburger and other foods that may harbor harmful bacteria.

To investigate how often young adults engage in this type of "risky eating behaviour'', they surveyed 4,343 students at 21 colleges and universities across the US about their eating habits and confidence in their ability to handle food safely. The findings are published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

On average, the study participants reported feeling strongly that they could prepare and handle food safely. But 53 percent reported eating raw homemade cookie dough (which contains uncooked eggs), 33 percent said they ate fried eggs with soft or runny yolks, 29 percent ate sushi, and 28 percent consumed raw sprouts. Eleven percent said they ate raw oysters, clams or mussels, and seven percent said they ate pink hamburger.

The higher a person's confidence in their food safety skills, the less likely they were to eat these high-risk foods, the researchers found, while people who perceived food poisoning to be a threat were also less likely to take food safety chances. White men were especially likely to eat risky foods.