One of the wisdoms passed on early in my family is not to eat certain types of food raw, because they will cause bellyache. It is regarded common sense on par with not to touch a hot stove because it will cause a burn. As far as I can tell, my friends have been educated in the same way. 

The foods are usually pointed out individually to the child, but now I think about it, they are all high in starch. A few examples are dough, batter, corn, starch slurry and potatoes. I don't think it is a concern about bacterial contamination - it isn't only said about cookie dough, but also about freshly made bread dough with no eggs in it. It is just that raw starch is considered indigestible. 

Now I happened to read the question [Is it safe to eat Raw Corn?](https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/6574/is-it-safe-to-eat-raw-corn). Given that the answer there is that it is safe to eat corn, I started wondering if starch is really so bad as to cause bellyache, or is it just a myth everybody believes because they heard of it before they had developed critical thinking. On the other hand, if a significant amount of starch starts its gelation process in the stomach, maybe it will cause unpleasant symptoms through dehydration or similar (although I don't see how it will gellate at body temperature). 

So, is there a food safety concern in eating raw starch, or is this a widespread misinformation? And if it doesn't cause ill effects, does it get digested, or just pass through the digestive system unchanged?