# What's more fattening,  \[cookie\] dough or a cooked cookie?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-more-fattening-cookie-dough-or-a-cooked-cookie/778447>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 29, 2017, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-more-fattening-cookie-dough-or-a-cooked-cookie/778447 "2017-01-29T00:01:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-more-fattening-cookie-dough-or-a-cooked-cookie/778447/21 "2017-01-29T03:04:05Z")

</div>

> [@Colibri](#):
>
> Fixed.

Booooo!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-more-fattening-cookie-dough-or-a-cooked-cookie/778447/22 "2017-01-29T04:26:32Z")

</div>

> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> Very technically, the baked cookies with have slightly more calories per ounce. Some water (calorie free) will evaporate during baking. But the difference is negligible, and if you’re eating the whole tube at once, the calories will be the same baked or unbaked.

Assuming you aren’t burning them into charcoalish lumps, like my cousin. (He does it deliberately. I don’t get it.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-more-fattening-cookie-dough-or-a-cooked-cookie/778447/23 "2017-01-29T04:35:30Z")

</div>

> [@running\_coach](#):
>
> Actually, when **Chronos** and **Bone** were announced, it was also announced that **Hal** [del]had retired[/del] been put out to pasture.

Where he gets to frolic with the sheep to his heart’s content. 😃

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-more-fattening-cookie-dough-or-a-cooked-cookie/778447/24 "2017-01-29T18:40:37Z")

</div>

All else being the same, a lump of cookie dough will be less fattening if eaten raw than if cooked because the dough contains eggs. Cooked egg whites are roughly 90% metabolized while raw egg whites are only around 50% metabolized:

[http://jn.nutrition.org/content/128/10/1716.full](http://jn.nutrition.org/content/128/10/1716.full)

> [@](#):
>
> **The true ileal digestibility of cooked and raw egg protein amounted to 90.9 ± 0.8 and 51.3 ± 9.8%, respectively**. A significant negative correlation (r = −0.92, P \< 0.001) was found between the 13C-recovery in breath and the recovery of exogenous N in the ileal effluents. In summary, using the 15N-dilution technique we demonstrated that the assimilation of cooked egg protein is efficient, albeit incomplete, and that the true ileal digestibility of egg protein is significantly enhanced by heat-pretreatment.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-more-fattening-cookie-dough-or-a-cooked-cookie/778447/25 "2017-01-29T21:25:29Z")

</div>

> [@Surreal](#):
>
> All else being the same, a lump of cookie dough will be less fattening if eaten raw than if cooked because the dough contains eggs. Cooked egg whites are roughly 90% metabolized while raw egg whites are only around 50% metabolized

Technically yes but egg whites contribute a tiny amount to the total calories, compared to fats and sugars. Because of the practical nature of the OP’s question the egg white issue probably doesn’t matter.

In general, cooking foods makes calories more accessible for digestion, which is a big part of the reason that the cooking fad caught on.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-more-fattening-cookie-dough-or-a-cooked-cookie/778447/26 "2017-01-29T21:43:23Z")

</div>

That would depend if you put any butter or spray on the cookie sheet .

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JKilez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e5b9ba/32.png) [@JKilez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKilez)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-more-fattening-cookie-dough-or-a-cooked-cookie/778447/27 "2017-01-29T23:31:47Z")

</div>

Don’t you lose some fat from the baking and cooling processes? The dough will always exude some oil to the baking pan and cooling/drying surface.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tenacious\_j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/439d5e/32.png) [@tenacious\_j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tenacious_j)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2017, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-more-fattening-cookie-dough-or-a-cooked-cookie/778447/28 "2017-01-30T02:20:41Z")

</div>

I was wondering the same thing. I figured the fat that ends up on the tray, napkin, etc. would contain some of the calories that were in the raw dough.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-more-fattening-cookie-dough-or-a-cooked-cookie/778447.md?page=1)