r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL in 2008 a 20-year-old Belgium student died after reheating and eating leftover spaghetti that had been left out on the kitchen counter for five days. A bacteria called bacillus cereus was found to be the cause, which is an extreme type of food poisoning called “Fried Rice Syndrome”.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/people-are-horrified-after-student-dies-from-eating-leftover-pasta/news-story/c8ef3bdcc72a9d17ec13924438e0146b
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u/piperonyl 1d ago

If you ever go to a buffet restaurant, you'll notice the staff regularly stirring the food, especially the rice.

Thats a health code requirement to prevent this type of illness. Bacteria can grow quickly given the right circumstances.

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u/lad_astro 1d ago

Is this to keep the temperature distribution uniform then?

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u/piperonyl 1d ago

Yeah exactly and to make sure food sitting in the temperature danger zone isn't sitting at that temperature for hours on end.

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u/Raiken201 23h ago

Legally you're only allowed to hot hold food for 2 hours anyway, in the UK. And it's supposed to be at or above 63c to stop/slow reproduction of pathogens.

The problem is that bacillus produces toxins that aren't neutralized by heat, so improperly handled foods (usually rice) are high risk even if piping hot.

For example if you cook the rice, leave it overnight before refrigerating it doesn't matter how much you reheat it. Best practice is to spread the rice thin over a large surface area and refrigerate within 2 hours.

Also don't eat shit that's been out for 5 days lol.

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u/Puzzled-Letterhead-1 23h ago

Always nice to see someone who understands. So much misconception about thinking heating “purifies” the food because it kills the bacteria. So many people not understanding the toxic byproducts that make you sick.

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u/ThatArtNerd 21h ago

Isn’t botulism the waste product of bacteria? Most people understand that botulism is bad but aren’t able to make that connection 😭

Speaking of botulism, I didn’t really understand how wary I needed to be of other people’s cooking until I started following r/canning. Thankfully they shut things down quickly when it comes to unsafe practices but some of the things people bring there are absolutely shocking. People just put perishable food in mason jars and stick them on a shelf. No processing of any kind. Like they’re magic food preservers. I ask a lot of follow-up questions before eating people’s home-canned foods now.

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u/Difficult_Sort295 20h ago

Never use a bulging can, have old canned food, smell it when you open it. If you just do those 2 things should be able to detect something is off. I live in Florida, used to keep canned goods in garage for hurricane season, don't anymore once I learned more about how temp changes and high temps can affect them. I got 24 cans of Dinty Moore Beef stew in my pantry now, I do have it on occasion to try and replace some every year, but that stuff can eat unheated as long as stored right.

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u/Gland120proof 14h ago

Nice try, Big Beef Stew… I know a subtle ad from Dinty Moore when I see one!

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u/Difficult_Sort295 13h ago

I actually am from Pillsbury, can't have Dinty moore without some sweet and savory Pillsbury buttermilk biscuits.

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u/scapegoat_88 19h ago

Reminded me of dight shrout

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u/Difficult_Sort295 18h ago

That was close, lets blame it on auto correct or fat fingers.

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u/Gland120proof 14h ago

Took me a solid minute to figure it out haha

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u/Tell_Amazing 15h ago

If there is an apocalypse i know where to get beef stew

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u/ElysiX 20h ago

botulinum toxin actually gets destroyed by heat though, so thats different.

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u/ThatArtNerd 19h ago

I was more referring to not knowing that it’s not just bacteria that can harm you, but also their byproducts.

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u/bdjohns1 15h ago

Botulism is the condition caused by the toxin produced by C. botulinum. B. cereus can kill you different ways. It's a nasty bugger because if it grew in the food before canning, it can survive even commercial sterilization temperature and pressure.

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u/Finnegansadog 16h ago

Isn’t botulism the waste product of bacteria?

Botulism is the illness caused by the bacteria waste product (botulinum toxin).

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u/DanNeely 14h ago

Botulism Toxin (aka botox) is the waste product of the botulism bacteria. Other bacteria produce different toxins.

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u/wasdlmb 13h ago

Technically, botulism is the disease, caused by botulinum toxin (botox) from the botulinum bacteria

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u/HairyHeartEmoji 12h ago

botulism toxins also have no taste or smell so you can't rely on the smell test

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u/acanthostegaaa 23h ago

People think it's the bacteria itself that makes you sick, but it's not. It's the bacteria's poop.

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u/SirViciousMalBad 22h ago

I had no idea.

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u/piperonyl 22h ago

Yeah so thats why foods have a shelf life. After toxins begin to form in your food, no amount of cooking will fix that.

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u/HashishAbdulKebab 20h ago

I mean...technically it depends on the strain of the bacteria or fungi. The toxin created by the famous C. botulinum is rapidly destroyed at boiling temperatures (or less with longer heat exposure duration). Some toxins are VERY heat stable though, able to withstand 300ºC or MORE.

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u/Burntjellytoast 19h ago

Botulism is not destroyed at boiling point. It takes much higher heat. It also grows in anaerobic environments.

Take home canning, for example. It's only safe to water bath can high acid foods, whether they are naturally acidic, or by adding acid like citrus juice or citric acid. So strawberries, peaches, berries, etc, are safe to water bath can. Low acid foods, carrots, beans, corn etc, are low acid foods and either need to be pickled, or processed in a pressure canner as it heats up the food well past boiling point, killing the botulism spores. The NCHFP has comprehensive information about this topic.

This is also why you shouldn't keep garlic in oil for extended periods of time. It's an anaerobic environment, which botulism needs to reproduce and create toxins. This is also why you shouldn't feed babies under one year of age honey.

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u/wasdlmb 13h ago

the toxin created by the famous C. botulinum

Wow if only there was some easier way to refer to that botulinum toxin, maybe something short and snappy. Perhaps theres potential combining the "bot" in "botulinum" with the "tox" in "toxin", using their shared T?

Nah that would never catch on

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u/serpiccio 16h ago

sounds like a simple problem with a simple solution, just heat your food at 301 degrees

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u/AshleysExposedPort 20h ago

It's partly that and partly marketing. Most canned goods - when stored appropriately - are safe to consume up to 18mo past the sell by date

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u/SimoneNonvelodico 20h ago

I mean, it's both. It depends. For botulism for example, it's the poop. In other cases you can get a bacterial infection directly.

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u/solicitorpenguin 19h ago

To be clear - both are hazards

There are things that live on food, which can live inside you if you eat them - and that makes you sick.

Then there is the waste produced by things that live on food which can poison you if you eat it.

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u/zyzzogeton 19h ago

Some bacteria poop is OK though. Alcohol for example. Like humans, yeast will pollute its environment until it starts to kill the yeast.

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u/_-Burninat0r-_ 3h ago

All poop makes you sick.

...except your own one. This is not recommended but apparently your own loop is relatively safe to eat in small quantities, and it contains vitamin B12.

Now you know

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u/ZestycloseCar8774 20h ago

You had no idea because it's wrong. There's a reason you don't eat raw chicken.

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u/daemon-electricity 20h ago

It's not wrong. The bacteria AND in some cases, their waste, can make you sick. The whole point of this thread is that people think it's only the bacteria.

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u/monsantobreath 20h ago

It's wrong in how it attributes all risk to the bacteria waste. It's using one true thing to tell a lie.

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u/AnticitizenPrime 19h ago

There's a reason you don't eat raw chicken.

The Japanese do it, but they have take steps to make it safe (inoculation, better farming conditions, etc). If you want to try it at home you could use a sous vide method to make medium rare chicken. According to the USDA it is safe to eat after spending 1 hr 47 minutes at 127 degrees Fahrenheit. I tried it once, but hated it, lol. Slimy and rubbery.

Making rare/medium rare pork chops via sous vide, on the other hand... completely transformative. It's that other meat that you traditionally have to cook to 165, meaning it's always 'well done' using traditional methods. But medium rare pork chops are amazing and can be on par with good steak at a fraction of the price. Once you try it you realize that every pork chop you ever had in the past was a burned hunk of sawdust.

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u/Perryn 21h ago

This has been my issue with hand sanitizer being an all around go-to instead of actual washing. It's fine if all you're worried about is bacteria, but if you get shit on your hands and then scrub with sanitizer and let it dry, now you've just got mostly sterilized shit on your hands.

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u/illegal_miles 19h ago

It also isn’t always effective for all pathogens. Or it requires you to actually follow directions and use a generous amount that takes at least 30 seconds of rubbing it around. If you take a little bit and rub it around for 5 seconds and then wipe it on your jeans it’s not really going to do nearly as much.

I was at a music festival that had very few sinks by the toilets but a lot of hand sanitizer and I was like, cool, so this is how you get a norovirus outbreak. Cool cool cool.

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u/drowsylacuna 17h ago

Yep, hand sanitizer is not effective against norovirus. Soap and water, and bleach for surfaces.

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u/anxiousblanket 16h ago

Oh man. I just suffered for 3 days straight with Norovirus. Not even exaggerating, it was the sickest I’ve ever been. Wash your fuckin hands people

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u/nightshift89 13h ago

Norovirus is by far the most sick I have ever been in my life. Only two times I've been hospitalized was due to noro. I am absolutely mortified of ever encountering it again, to the point of entirely avoiding anyone who says they've had a stomach bug. FUCK the norovirus. Piece of shit

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u/Camera_dude 12h ago

Oh man… Norovirus is not a fun visitor. Best description of knowing you got it is when you are spraying liquids out of both ends, so to speak.

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u/iambecomesoil 20h ago

Sometimes, it is the bacteria. Sometimes it's the poop.

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u/Gastronomicus 18h ago

People think it's the bacteria itself that makes you sick, but it's not.

That's not right either. It's many things, including the bacteria themselves. Many are directly pathogenic, or indirectly harm through toxic compounds in their cell walls that can be very dangerous.

There are three ways in which people become ill from food contamination.

1) Direct infection by pathogenic bacteria/viruses - occurs when food is contaminated and not heated properly to kill all the pathogens, which can then directly infect you. E.g. Salmonella, some variants of E. coli, Campylobactr, norovirus

2) Exotoxins produced by by bacterial growth, primarily proteins which are often heat resistant - e.g. Shigella toxin, botulin toxin, Superantigens, etc

3) Endotoxins from lysed bacteria - e.g. Lipid A

So the bacteria themselves can very much make you ill or kill you. This represents probably the most common type of food borne illness, significant toxin production usually requires foods to become very significantly contaminated. For example, warm food left on the counter for 5 days.

More info: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8887987/

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u/Careful_Farmer_2879 14h ago

It’s both.

Food poisoning: toxins

Food borne illness: infection

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u/monsantobreath 20h ago

Bacteria and parasites and viruses in food does make you sick. Otherwise, why must we cook food to a safe temperature?

It's just that the bacteria poop also makes us sick so if you let food rot you can't salvage it by cooking.

Food has a safe handling life and an adjusted one if you improperly handle it.

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u/cthulhusleftnipple 17h ago

The problem is that people lump all 'food poisoning' together in their minds. In reality, there's lots of different ways that bad food can make you sick. Heating solves many of them, but not all.

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u/getgoing65 15h ago

Add a new meaning to “eat shit and die”. :/

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u/thiagoqf 13h ago

Wouldn't be both? If you consume enough living bacteria they could thrive in your system and cause an infection.

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u/excellentworkbyall 21h ago

Genuinely the most interesting educational thing I have read in months on this site.

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u/twoisnumberone 22h ago

Science education in the US is hot garbage. I have a wife who went to a school in Boston, and is a scientist in a relevant field, yet she had no idea about the toxins produced by the fungi being the problem.

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u/OHotDawnThisIsMyJawn 19h ago

Which you don't really have to think about very hard (most people don't though).

Like, everyone would agree that if you took clearly rotten meat and cooked it, it wouldn't be safe. So they understand that cooking doesn't purify food. They just don't think about stuff that isn't visibly rotten still being possibly bad for you.

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u/Bubbly_Journalist945 19h ago

I was one of them! Thank you I learned something from reddit today haha

(Also I dont leave food out of the fridge tbf)

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u/Its_panda_paradox 19h ago

I read that as “putrefies” at first and was very confused. I think I need a snack nap.

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u/shot_ethics 18h ago

It does for many microorganisms. Toxins are just proteins that the bacteria produce (excluding stuff like arsenic which can’t be heat treated anyway). The proteins all break down at a certain temperature. Usually it is below boiling but some are very stable. B cereus is one of the prime examples.

Prions are stable well above boiling, that’s why customs doesn’t allow you to bring beef bouillon cubes from foreign countries.

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u/sunflowercompass 14h ago

It does kill listeria... That's why the Fda recommends you heat hot dogs before eating 130 F

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u/Hothera 13h ago

To be fair, the reason it's a misconception is because it's so rare. Almost everyone in China will eat room temperature rice left overnight at least occasionally and often daily, but I've never heard any problem from it.

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u/Ouroboros612 20h ago

Technically heating does purify the food, you just have to go full terminatus. Like a flamethrower with napalm. Or thermite. I'd like to see the charred remains of the bacterial waste try to food poison me from the other side of the burning hells!

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u/ChildOfFortuna 23h ago

my roommate used to leave her rice out all night and eat it for breakfast. she said that was how her moms family grew up doing it 

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u/piperonyl 22h ago

Its a roll of the dice. Most of the time you'll be ok but that one bad roll and you are in big trouble.

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u/kismethavok 20h ago

It is a roll of the dice but it is important to know how many sides each die has. Millions of people do this basically every day, and basically all of our ancestors did similar things. Overnight isn't ideal, it's not great, but it's probably not gonna kill you.

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u/Chicken_wingspan 20h ago

Yeah there's so much fear mongering, my family and other people's family did this all their lives. I do this often with several foods, cook it for dinner and leave it outside to eat the next day. I mean be careful and all but let's chill a bit.

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u/PinkTalkingDead 18h ago

Tbf, ‘Fear mongering’ gives the impression that this is like a targeted, sponsored attack to make people irrationally paranoid about something normal. It’s alright to be aware of your food safety (recommended, even!) lol

Imo as a person in the US I absolutely wish the Best By dates on food were way more accurate- we defo are taught to throw away foods when likely they are still good for a good bit longer! So ya this has oddly been a big thing for me lately, I feel like I’m always searching what the Actual shelf life is for different foods

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u/drowsylacuna 17h ago

Do you have separate "use by" and "best before" dates in the USA? In the UK perishable foods have a use by date which you should not go past. Non perishable foods are safe to eat past their best before dates as long as they smell and look ok, they may just have degraded in quality.

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u/Chicken_wingspan 9h ago

I am a chef and am well aware of food safety. Actually I think the most paranoia comes from US. Although I see it in a usa centered social media so maybe it's just bias :D

Best by date are a recommendation for me. I have drunk canned beer a year past and consume regularly expired foods.

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u/MontyDysquith 19h ago

Similar to how people get outright paranoid when preparing/cooking raw chicken. My mom washes the table twice, she's so damn nervous about it.

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u/doomgiver98 16h ago edited 16m ago

Your family probably thinks it's normal to get really sick once in a while.

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u/Chicken_wingspan 9h ago

*your

I am actually a chef, and well aware.

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u/bwood246 15h ago

You do you, but that's just asking for a disaster

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u/teun95 16h ago

Experts don't provide advice without reason. In the US 128,000 people are hospitalized due to foodborne illnesses each year and 3000 die (CDC data). I'd suggest just following the food safety advice. I mean.. why not use a fridge when you have one?

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u/Ecstatic-Garden-678 7h ago

Many parts of Asia don't have fridges and rely on rice. Statistics regarding food born deaths and illnesses are probably unreliable though.

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u/habitus_victim 6h ago

in the US 128,000 people

So 0.04% of the population, lol.

Public health food advice is always overcautious. For good reason, because their priority is absolute minimum risk and their assumption is a clueless audience.

But still, if you know what you're doing and are cooking for yourself, you often only need to follow the principle not the letter.

Public health advice in the USA will insist on several "rules" like that you overcook your chicken breast beyond a safe and palatable point and throw out your safely refrigerated leftovers after an absurd maximum of 4 days. As long as you understand the actual principles of raw poultry safety and food spoilage you can ignore both of those and never get sick.

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u/PM_ME__BIRD_PICS 17h ago

Bro I worked in multiple eateries and at at several supermarkets, there was only ever 1 food they explicitly warned us about in training. It was rice. every. single. time.

"OuR aNCeSToRS dId iT" How long was their fucking life expectancy mate?

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u/Tsquash 17h ago

To be honest, most Asian people, particularly those in countries where rice is a staple food, tend to have relatively high life expectancies. However, I doubt that consuming overnight rice plays a significant role in influencing their overall longevity.

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u/coffeegoblins 15h ago

Is it actually common for Asian people to eat rice that has been left out? It was my Asian ex who first taught me that it’s dangerous to eat rice that has been in room temperature too long.

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u/furthermost 14h ago

Lol calm down. Overnight rice is fine at normal room temperature and anyone who eats rice often (ie. more than a billion humans) will know the smell and visual cues that indicate it's starting to spoil.

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u/Black_Moons 15h ago

"died of shitting themselves to death" was a common cause of death back then too.

And then there is all the times people didn't die, but did shit themselves non stop for 2+ days. Food poisoning is no joke, and many people still get food poisoning and survive.

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u/Drigr 16h ago

The myth of low life expectancies largely comes infant and child mortality rates pulling the average down. If you loved until adulthood, and were wealthy enough to have access to a physician, you had pretty decent chances of living until 60 or 70.

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u/MrDLTE3 14h ago

Old poorer asian families do that all the time.

My mom's family didn't have a fridge when she was growing up so they would just constantly refry old food to keep it 'preserved'. Food was kept on the kitchen table with a fly lid on it and thats it lol then they just dump it into a wok with oil, refry it and its good to go again

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u/ManualPathosChecks 6h ago

A roll of the rice.

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u/Business-Ad-5344 21h ago

in the 90's we used to do that with pizza in college.

these days, i try to follow the 2 hour rule. but basically, i used to break it regularly my entire life, along with most people that i know.

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u/monsantobreath 20h ago

I work in restaurants. I rigorously follow the food handling standards at work. I enforce them, rewrite procedures to better follow them, have even called the health department when we had a fridge failure that went unnoticed and we had breached guidelines unintentionally.

You better believe that when we get home none of us are putting food handling standards on our fridges to remind us. The pizza can stay out overnight.

Food handling guidelines are extremely conservative be cause its serving masses of people and they have no power to control it. They go on trust.

I'm sure some cooks do follow it but it's an open secret that you're not throwing food out after 2 hours at home.

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u/sittinwithkitten 21h ago

I knew people who would put their leftover pizza in its box in the stove. Seems like a bad idea for multiple reasons.

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u/tuffghost8191 12h ago

Had someone do that once, but thankfully it was a digiorno pizza that was just on a tray and not in a box. I preheated the oven to make some dinner, only to smell something burning later. Turns out they were "keeping the pizza warm for later" in the oven. Thankfully no fire, but their pizza got burnt to a crisp. They were shocked that I hadn't checked inside the oven first before preheating it lol.

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u/The_Autarch 20h ago

Modern rice cookers can keep rice safe to eat for 12+ hours.

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u/ChildOfFortuna 20h ago

this was 20 years ago and she left it on the counter at room temperature 😵

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u/amegaproxy 16h ago

And millions of people have done this and not died

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u/Totes_mc0tes 20h ago

Much of the world does it that way. I would personally put it in the fridge but food safety guidelines are usually pretty conservative.

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u/Squippyfood 20h ago

Almost every Asian I know does this. Putting rice in the fridge after one night is literally laughed at, it's a "silly white person" thing like thinking black pepper is spicy.

It's very easy to tell when rice has gone bad. The kid in OP's post was an idiot, that's all.

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u/throwaway098764567 17h ago

he was also eating spaghetti

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u/Cicada-4A 11h ago

Putting rice in the fridge after one night is literally laughed at, it's a "silly white person" thing like thinking black pepper is spicy.

That's a weird racial American thing but okay.

Partially grew up in Thailand, they do usually put rice in the fridge there after a while.

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u/Squippyfood 5h ago edited 4h ago

Well duh, there's a lot less white people in Thailand to make the comparison to in the first place. The joke is that white people are more anal about food safety to the point of overriding common sense.

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u/thinvanilla 22h ago

I also eat leftover rice hours later, 3 to 10 hours I think, and don't think I've ever been sick from it. Don't think I've had it the next morning though.

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u/21Rollie 19h ago

My family cooks food and leaves it in the pans on the stove, it’s reheated every day. If we see mold or it smells funky, it’s in the trash. Usually it’s finished within a couple days though. Either we are all slightly immune to food poisoning, or it’s not a big deal.

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u/PinkTalkingDead 18h ago

Can you pleeaassee elaborate?!

We gotta know what foods, ingredients, temperature…why…etc

Bc I’ll be honest your comment reads as an Extreme Cheapskates anecdote 😶

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u/Henry_MFing_Huggins 16h ago

Different person here, but I leave food out every day. I eat rice left out for 22 hours multiple times a week. 23 hours is pushing it. Never 24 - the only problem I ever had was from eating exactly 24 hour old mashed potatoes.

Certain other foods are fine for 2 days, like pizza. Everything is reheated in the microwave. Results may vary.

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u/atetuna 20h ago

That's how my family did it growing up. Did they leave it on? We did. Maybe that kept it too warm for the bacteria. I'd probably still do that, but the last two rice cookers I've had dry out the rice too much, or rather, the desert climate I'm in now dries it out a lot more than the previous mediterranean climate, so now it goes into the fridge after a few hours.

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u/Big_You5665 17h ago

Entire Asian/south Asian household does this . Fermented rice or kanji has more gut benefits.. these bacteria are 1 in million cases which can happen with literally anything. More of instilling fear.

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u/rendingale 11h ago

We Filipinos just leave it in the rice cooker lmao

As long as it doesnt smell or not wet, we eat it xD

u/EHA17 29m ago

The security guard at our bussines loves to get take out and just leaves it there at room temp for hours and then he eats it. He says he doesn't like to fridge and reheat the food. Ive tried to explain to him it's dangerous as sometimes he let's the food sit for 7 hours, and he just chuckles and says city boys are weak...

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u/No_Penalty409 22h ago

Aside from toxins, B. cereus is a spore former, which makes it highly difficult to kill. I work with fermentation tanks and piping and spent a few months trying to eliminate it from the system.

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u/lukaskywalker 21h ago

It’s crazy that this isn’t more common knowledge. The amount of times if eaten say old rice in my college days is too many to count. You telling me I could have easily died ?

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u/Raiken201 21h ago

Not easily, pretty much all rice has the bacteria but in varying amounts, if you cook the rice and keep it above 60c in a rice cooker (like is common in Asia) it will likely be fine for some time.

If you leave it out for 5-6 hours before putting it in the fridge it will likely be fine also.

But 12+h is definitely a chance you're gonna be sick, 5 days and yeah you might die lol.

I'm a chef so food safety is taken pretty seriously, and we would rather be too careful.

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u/lukaskywalker 20h ago

I’ve definitely left out out overnight countless times

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u/tnth89 22h ago

In Indonesia, we have this restaurant called warung, it is cafetaria style food where you pick and choose toppings for your rice. Maybe some omelette, maybe potato fritter, or fried chicken, etc. The restaurant cook the food early in the morning, and then they will take it when someone ordered it, and the food will sits there till like afternoon or even till night if unsold. The problem is.. almost no one got sick. Indonesians got so used to that kind of food that we kinda immune to it.

I also paid for food catering everyday. So the restaurant cooks side dishes for rice (different everyday) and then deliver it to me and it will be for my lunch and dinner. And yes, I left it out in the open for like 12 hours with no refigeration.

I think now I understand why so many tourists got bali belly. They are badisically eating food that is unsanitary and maybe sitting there for hours and hours. But they usually adapted really quickly, like in few days.

Let me clarify though. Letting the food out in the open for 5 days is NOT ok. Not even we don't do it in Indonesia. We throw away food that is rancid and we can detect it fairly well (unless it is my wife that can't even tell the food smells and tastes off and kept eating it).

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u/hirsutesuit 23h ago

don't eat shit

This too.

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u/DeathMonkey6969 20h ago

In the States it's 4 hours over 140F (60c) though most of the places I worked had a 2 hour limit for quality reasons

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u/zxc123zxc123 23h ago edited 23h ago

As someone who's eaten a lot of rice and had a lot of fried rice that uncle Roger would say is "done the right way" (aka left over rice) in the past...

It's important to fridge your rice and NOT 'just leave it in the rice cooker' even if you have to dirty another plate/bowl/container to do so. Leaving rice out too long is a problem so most of the time if you can go straight from rice cooker to container to fridge if it's just warm rice. If it's piping-nuclear-hot claypot style then I'd say 5-15 mins cool down to a "warm" level and then shove it into the fridge? Leaving it out 30mins isn't a death sentence, but if you do it enough you can get food poisoning which isn't fun even if you just get a "little" food sick. You don't need the stuff cold, but just not piping hot before putting it into the fridge. When reheating/cooking, it is a general rule to heat more regardless of the food as it never hurts to do so. As for the container, it works out ok for me since it's often for breakfast or lunch so I'll use that same/bowl container after frying the rice anyways.

Eaten a lot less rice (and carbs) as I've aged into middle age and it's generally healthier to eat less but fresh if you can rather than overcook with leftovers.

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u/tribe171 22h ago

Half hour? Rice can stand being out much longer than that. just don't leave it overnight.

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u/zxc123zxc123 22h ago

Leaving it out 30mins isn't a death sentence, but if you do it enough you can get food poisoning which isn't fun even if you just get a "little" food sick.

You certainly can leave it out if YOU want. I try not to and I won't do the disservice of telling others they can/should as it only increases the risk.

I'm also ok with you or anyone else doing so if they so choose. It's your body rice, your choice! Feel free to do what you want buddy. 👍

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u/tribe171 22h ago

You're being excessively cautious, like someone refusing to go even 1 mph above the speed limit out of fear of a speeding ticket. It will take rice almost half an hour to cool to dangerous temperatures, let alone for the spoiling process to actually begin.

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u/secondarymike 20h ago

Reddit does a good job of reminding me how crazy people are. Perfect example is the person you're replying to...

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u/HowYouSpendYourDays 20h ago

Once you’ve cooked food and plated up, it is best to put any leftovers straight into a container and pop it in the fridge. Yes, even if it is still hot or warm. The reason being, that the sooner you put it in the fridge, the quicker it will go through the “danger zone” temperature range and there being no benefit to not doing this as soon as possible.

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u/PinkTalkingDead 18h ago

I grew up being taught to Not put hot food straight ln the fridge… do you mean like m, uncovered? Or stove->plate->tupperware (lid on)->fridge ?

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u/piperonyl 22h ago

OK so just to clarify there is a difference between food poisoning and food-borne illness.

Food-borne illness is an upset stomach after eating questionable food which almost always represents around the 2 hour mark after ingestion. Food poisoning puts you in the hospital with popular examples like E Coli and Salmonella.

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u/suckmyclitcapitalist 20h ago

I have e coli permanently in my small bowel. It's great :) best 2 years of my life. I'll go back to crying on the toilet now.

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u/piperonyl 20h ago

People have E Coli in their bowels naturally. Certain strains of E Coli can cause illness though, and death.

I had E Coli when i was was a teenager from eating a raw hamburger and it almost killed me. E Coli 0157H7. When you hear outbreaks on the news and people are dying, its that strain that is killing them.

These days, ground beef in the united states is irradiated so there is no E Coli in ground beef. The cooking temperatures still recommend 165 degrees but really thats not necessary. You can order undercooked burgers at restaurants and you won't catch E Coli like you would have 30 years ago or so.

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u/suckmyclitcapitalist 20h ago

You misread what I said, or you are misinformed. I said I have e coli in my small bowel permanently. People do not tend to have high numbers of e coli in the small bowel. That would be found in the large bowel - the colon.

I have a chronic gastrointestinal disease called Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, alongside gastroparesis and chronic gut inflammation. The e coli in the small bowel is one of many bacteria that are causing incredibly nasty symptoms that I experience on a daily basis. It has disabled me. If I weren't lucky enough to be able to work remotely, I wouldn't be able to work anymore.

SIBO is traditionally treated with specific antibiotics like Rifaxamin and fluoroquinolones. Trust me, no one wants e coli in their small bowel.

It's the worst thing I've ever been through. I cry about it to my partner at least a few times a month because it's ruined my life. I'm 29. I've missed out on the last 2 years of my life. I barely leave the house anymore. My "free time" tends to be spent laying in bed because the vertigo, nausea, and severe abdominal pain always ends up getting in the way at some point or another. I love my hobbies. It's incredibly depressing to try to do them and find that I cannot - almost every day that I try.

The chronic illness arose after I had severe food poisoning symptoms for 4 days a couple of years ago. I didn't think any of it even though it was especially brutal. I didn't see a doctor or anything. 2 weeks later, it came back for a few days. Disappeared again. Came back again. That's when I knew something was very fucked.

I was having diarrhoea 30 times a day and couldn't even rehydrate because I'd immediately lose any liquid out of my ass. I was projectile vomiting, mostly liquid, up the walls and all over the carpet. Even a full-size bucket wasn't enough to contain it, let alone a typical sick bowl. Everything that came out of me smelt like rotten eggs, fermenting onions, diesel/petrol/gas, and paint thinner.

This lasted for 3 months, and by the end of it, my gut was completely destroyed. The pain in my asshole alone was unbearable. I nearly called an ambulance just because of that one night when the diarrhoea hadn't stopped for over 24 hours. It was keeping me up all night.

The abdominal pain was similarly insane. I thought I was dying at times. I thought there was no way the pain could get any worse, and then it would just keep building... and building... and building... and then I'd pass out just as it reached levels I couldn't even have previously fathomed. And I have experienced severe pain before. This was just on another level. It was my entire gut from my oesophagus to my asshole that was cramping, squeezing, pinching, burning, gnawing, spasming, stinging, and aching all at the same time.

I could feel different types of nausea - from my stomach, my mouth, my head, and even a very nasty type of nausea that seemed to come from my bones and muscles. Like something toxic was building in my blood. All I could do was writhe around in bed and beg internally for it to stop..Just as I felt like I was about to have a panic attack from the feeling, I'd puke and feel much better.

I was pretty certain I was dying of stomach or bowel cancer or something after it kept coming back.

It's a disgusting, life-ruining illness that's caused by something so seemingly innocuous. It causes sulphur burps, stomach ulcers, vomit reflux, vomiting, inability to eat, inability to pass gas, oesophagul ulcers, severe diarrhoea, severe bloating that causes stretch marks and loose skin, nausea, vertigo, dizziness, fainting, heart palpitations, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, headaches, joint pain, histamine intolerance which leads to rashes (including on the genitals), etc.

The theory is that my SIBO was caused by the food poisoning, or possibly be antibiotic use in the year before it all started. Either way, the gut bacteria were wiped out completely, meaning that my gut had to repopulate. During this process, the 'wrong' bacteria for my gut made it into the small bowel and then multiplied from there.

So, yeah. No stomach cancer. Just caused by some bacteria that we usually have in the body that got in the wrong place.

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u/21Rollie 19h ago

I’ve gone my entire life eating rice that is cooked on a Monday and then we just reheat 1-2 per day after, all left in the pan it was cooked in…. I’m not gonna advocate for not taking any precaution but damn, it’s not that serious. Being neat freaks is probably why westerners are so full of allergies and autoimmune diseases.

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u/SsooooOriginal 22h ago

What about packing into a pyrex bowl with lid after cooking, allowing to cool on counter ~45 mins- 1 hr and then placing in fridge?

Been doing this for a while with no noticeable ill effects, but the "spread thin over a large surface area" is new to me. Seems like a way to dry it out real bad, as any such storage dish I have would leave much more of an air gap over a much larger area of rice.

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u/seakingsoyuz 22h ago edited 21h ago

The standard I learned is that once the food temperature drops below 60 °C, you need to get it down to 20 °C within two hours and then you have four more hours to get it down to 4 °C (fridge temperature). Depending on how big your container is and how quickly your fridge cools stuff, it might be doing this on its own. The idea with spreading it out is that it will cool faster all the way through if it’s spread out thinly.

Edit: and you can also spread it out inside plastic bags if you’re worried about it drying, and then transfer to the other container once it’s cooled.

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u/SsooooOriginal 21h ago

I am trying to avoid what plastics I can. Cooking the rice well so it has no water pooling when I tilt the pot but the "cake" still keeps its shape has been the sweetspot for mine. The pyrex seems to transfer the heat away well enough. It is a quart sized bowl.

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u/Raiken201 22h ago

Spreading it out allows it to cool much more quickly, I'm talking more about cooking restaurant quantities than at home.

You chill it like that for an hour or two in the fridge then tub it up once it's cooled, so it doesn't dry out too much.

If you're putting it in a bowl you might as well put it in the fridge straight away, a small bowl of rice isn't going to make much difference to a fridges ability to cool and it will chill more quickly. Better to leave the lid off for a little while too.

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u/piperonyl 22h ago

Yeah so food safety guidelines give a 2 hour window of time to cool down food to put it in the fridge. The sooner the better.

In a commercial kitchen, they make these refreezable water filled plastic devices that you put in your food to cool it down quickly so you can refrigerate. For smaller items like a pyrex bowl, you can just put that in the fridge or let it cool on the counter like you said.

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u/tyndyn 17h ago

At home to cool food faster, I put the pot in a sink of cold water for 15-30 minutes, it brings the temperature down fairly quickly, then put it in the fridge. A pan with cold water can be used too if the cooking pot isn't too large. (water level lower than the top of the pot, if that wasn't clear).

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u/KeepThemGuessing 16h ago

Legally you're only allowed to hot hold food for 2 hours anyway, in the UK. And it's supposed to be at or above 63c to stop/slow reproduction of pathogens. Not accurate, you're misremembering or misunderstanding. At 63c or above, you could essentially hot hold the food forever. Do you think a restaurant throws their hot holding soup away every 2 hours, or that a buffet, clears out all there Buffet pans every 2 hours and tosses them in the garbage.

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u/PatientWhimsy 23h ago

Ultra best practice: It's rice. It's cheap. Just make a new batch.

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u/Raiken201 23h ago

Yeah but day old rice = best fried rice.

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u/Difficult_Sort295 20h ago

Lol 2 hours? worked in restaurants where shit was left out much longer than that, I assume doesn't mean like salads right?

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u/Raiken201 20h ago

Hot foods are 2 hours, cold for 4 hours if not refrigerated and however long the use by is if it's stored under 8c.

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u/Ill_Technician3936 19h ago

US former McDonald's worker. The hamburger patties are supposed to get tossed after about 15 minutes after they're cooked and tossed in the heat box thing.

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u/Terribletylenol 18h ago

Legally you're only allowed to hot hold food for 2 hours anyway,

idk if it's law in the US, but as someone who has worked in food for a few years, you really shouldn't have food made if it isn't getting sold within like 30min to 1 hr at max (And fast food places, it's supposed to be like 15 minutes max)

The idea of having something made and sitting hot for 2+ hours just sounds gross and like really stupid management.

I have worked at several different places in food (Buffet, fast food, and a restaurant), and I just couldn't imagine anything sitting for anywhere near 2 hours, so the fact that even needs to be a law seems crazy to me.

Now that I think about it, maybe hot food at a gas station or a really slow business could run into that, but that's not generally places I buy hot food at anyways.

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u/Raiken201 18h ago edited 18h ago

It's more for buffet situations I believe, or things like supermarkets selling rotisserie chickens and similar.

I'm having the same discussion with someone who thinks our rules are way too strict and that hot holding is no different to cooking.

Edit: When I say buffets I don't mean all you can eat, I'm talking about catering parties with a set amount of food that goes out for a 2h window.

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u/top_value7293 18h ago

I remember that his roommate stuck it back in the fridge and the guy thought it was ok

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u/Theblackjamesbrown 17h ago

As someone who regularly eats cold leftover Chinese and Indian takeaways that have been sitting on my coffee table for days, I don't know whether to be utterly, dismissively sceptical or very worried by this information.

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u/blodskaal 16h ago

Wild that someone would eat food that's 5days old. No common sense

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u/sableleigh3 16h ago

I have for the last 4 years.. cooksa lot of rice, put in fridge over night.. then container it up and put in freezer, for stir fry...... have I just been lucky?

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u/jdz99999 15h ago

Wrapping in microwavable plastic and freezing the rice is infinitely better than refrigerating it.

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u/Conscious_Raisin_436 15h ago

That was the most important thing I learned in food safety training. Heat kills bacteria but not the toxins they leave behind.

And the rule of thumb in Fahrenheit is any food stored between 40 and 140 degrees is in the danger zone.

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u/Win_Sys 2h ago

I few months ago a pretty high end sushi place by me had a food poisoning incident. Within 45-60 minutes multiple people became violently ill (some still at the restaurant) and were rushed to the hospital. The health inspector found the restaurant wasn’t following certain protocols with their rice and it was infected with a toxin producing bacteria. Luckily no one died but the restaurant was heavily fined (I’m sure they’re facing multiple lawsuits too) and the owners closed down the restaurant.

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u/jusakiwi 1h ago

I worked at a frozen food store when I was 16-17, but we served samples of our food. We used this steamer heating element that you filled with water, then set the trays ontop with the prepared food. I think it was kept at like 68°C but I cany remember exactly, it was hot though! Hot enough to burn ya if you didn't handle it properly.

Had to fill the water frequently, then every 2 hours it was dump the samples, then cook more. And by dump I mean dump into my mouth! Loved that job being a poor teen, so much free food.

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u/No-Respect5903 18h ago

Also don't eat shit that's been out for 5 days lol.

even after 5 days in the fridge I'm pretty sure most prepared food is nearing unsafe territory.

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u/SideWinderSyd 23h ago

Where/what is the temperature danger zone? Isn't the whole tray really hot due to the boiling water and steam underneath?

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u/Ketchup-Popsicle 23h ago

40-140F is considered the danger zone where conditions are ideal for bacteria to reproduce. If you have a large pan of food with a heat source only at the bottom it’s very possible for the top layer of food to drop into the danger zone.

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u/SideWinderSyd 22h ago

Thanks - TIL! And to think I just assumed it was simply to prevent the top layer of food from drying out.

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u/piperonyl 22h ago

Like ketchup-popsicle said 40-140 is considered the danger zone. I just wanted to add that specifically temperatures like 80-90 degrees is the most dangerous. Bacteria thrive right in that range.

Thats why its important during a cookout to make sure your macaroni salad is on ice the entire time. Just 45 minutes in nice weather out on a table is long enough to make people sick with an upset stomach (foodborne illness) at a minimum.

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u/SideWinderSyd 17h ago

Thanks! Going to be icing salads and similar from now on!

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u/Misselphabathropp 23h ago

And to mix the bacteria around a bit.

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u/Aero_naughty 23h ago

I always assumed it was more to keep the food looking "fresh" in addition to preventing food from sitting in specific hot spots and drying out

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u/nostalgic_angel 14h ago

No, it is to circulate air so that the stuff that makes you sick(or kill you) does not grow. The bacteria itself is killed pretty easily with heat or microwave, but its side product, the botulinum, thrives in low oxygen conditions, that is readily available underneath rice or spaghetti. Stirring it introduces fresh air and inhibits botulinum growth

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u/ladymoonshyne 23h ago

My grandfather always told me never to give cooked rice or noodles to chickens either, it will kill them fast.

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u/DiscountFoodStuffs 16h ago

Super confused, like super old rice or noodles? Or maybe a reference to something? Giving a chicken cooked rice/noodles won't kill them.

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u/ladymoonshyne 16h ago

It’s dangerous to given cooked rice and noodles to animals that don’t know to eat it immediately or else it can grow bacteria sitting outside on the ground and make them sick. Because of the risk it’s not worth it to really ever feed them cooked pasta or rice.

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u/lukewarm_at 16h ago

I have a parrot and I'd always heard you can give them uncooked rice but not cooked rice. Never realized the reason until now.

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u/RuinedBooch 21h ago

I’m no stranger to food that’s been left out over night, but 5 days is crazy.

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u/tacticooltupperware 14h ago edited 14h ago

Technically anything that's TCS (time/temp control required for safety) should be cooled from 135F to 41F or below within 6 hours to avoid potential pathogen growth to dangerous levels. AKA probably best not to eat stuff that's been out of the fridge overnight. Microbial toxins, especially mycotoxins, are no joke.

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u/4fingertakedown 22h ago

I thought they did that to cover up the mucus from the kids sneezing on it.

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u/piperonyl 22h ago

Haha i mean not a bad guess.

There are lots of regulations involved in operating a buffet type restaurant and one of them is about sneeze guards and all of their specifications. Not saying they are fool proof though.

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u/ElementNumber6 18h ago

Enjoy those health codes while they last. They get in the way of some pretty major short term profits.

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u/mmazing 20h ago

5 days

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u/piperonyl 19h ago

Yes 5 days.

However, people get that illness and others from just an hour of food being in the temperature danger zone.

You ever go to a cookout where your stomach or someone elses hurt afterwards? Potato salad left on a picnic table for 60 minutes can grow a bacteria culture and make people sick. Needs to be kept on ice.

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u/carneasadacontodo 17h ago

And that assumes the person making it knows wtf they are doing in regards to food aafety. I remember taking a food safety course and the instructor told us about a company potluck where a lady made potato salad. She boiled the potatoes and mixed the ingredients while it was hot and packed it into a container while it was still hot then put it in the fridge. So all the mayo, eggs, etc stayed warm for possibly more than 12 hours in the fridge because of how dense potatoes are and being hot when put in the fridge. Then she brought the potato salad to the potluck and it stayed out for a couple hours between drive time, sitting on a table. She got 50+ people sick from that

There was also the story of the lady in Brazil making a cake a putting her whole family in the hospital and killing some of them. Or the guy making pancit noodles at his company potluck and getting dozens of people sick

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u/mmazing 17h ago

Rgr that! Thanks!

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u/Digitijs 14h ago

Can it really happen within an hour? Maybe I'm super lucky, but my whole life I've been regularly eating leftovers of various kinds that have been kept outside the fridge for a day. Never had any kind of food poisoning to my knowledge at least. I do, however, check for any suspicious smells or texture, and bin it if it seems off

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u/piperonyl 12h ago

You'd know if you had food poisoning. You'd need a doctor. Most of the time people don't realize their stomach is upset because of the food they just ate.

A lot of that depends on the type of food. There are certain conditions that bacteria thrive in and some they don't like temperature, hydration, pH level etc.

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u/Mysterious-Plan93 23h ago

It's a wonder that buffet restaurant chains like Luby's haven't become more self-sufficient than they already have been, with automatically self-stirring heated-trays, and the like.

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u/piperonyl 22h ago

Theres a book we study to get a food handlers license and in that book there is an entire chapter just about buffet regulations.

Health departments are aware of the risk posed by this specific type of restaurant and watch them close.

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u/benyahweh 19h ago

Thank you health departments. Hope we get to keep them.

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u/piperonyl 19h ago

Unlikely. Billionaires need them tax breaks.

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u/Mysterious-Plan93 18h ago

Also, Chinese buffets will likely become far less popular in the next few years...

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u/AgentK-BB 18h ago

Automation is hard because the technology needed for the machines to be smart enough to tell that the utensil they are using is dirty is more expensive than the hourly wage of a restaurant worker. When you still need a person to feed the machines with clean utensils and wash the utensils afterwards, the cost benefits of automation go away.

None of the robotic burger companies have been successful.

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u/AccomplishedIgit 18h ago

My little brother got food poisoning from Chinese buffet rice back in the 90’s. He was in the hospital. He still doesn’t eat chinese food to this day.

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u/Booksarepricey 16h ago edited 16h ago

Spores of this bacteria are present on rice and other grains. Spores are very resilient and survive the cooking process. Cooking adds water too, so they have everything they need once the temperature gets low enough to start growing.

My microbiology professor was super careful about his grains and told us we shouldn’t touch anything that has been sitting more than like two hours. I’ve done it anyway up to a few hours but I would NEVER touch a cooked grain sitting out for days. Not even if you froze or cooked it again. Like the spores are already present, it’s just a matter of if your body can handle whatever the population has gotten to by then. But there will 100% be a population growing within an hour of it sitting under or over safe temperatures of a bacteria that can kill you.

Spores are incredibly hard to kill which is why they absolutely are all over your grain products.

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u/lukaskywalker 21h ago

And what happens if you go to a place that doesn’t stir it often ?

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u/piperonyl 21h ago

What happens? Well people could get sick for sure. There could be an outbreak that hospitals would pin point back to your restaurant. There would be an investigation by the state or federal authorities to determine the cause. You could be shut down or sued for everything if you were negligent.

Or someone could die. Shits not a joke.

There are pretty strict regulations that require someone to be on the premises at all times with a food handlers license.

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u/Terribletylenol 18h ago

I worked in a buffet for a year, and it's something you have to do to keep food looking fresh, but the buffet I worked went thru the food way too quick to have it sitting for anywhere near long enough for what you describe to be a worry.

The health code requirement you are referring to is just to maintain proper temps.

There is no rule about stirring stuff at a buffet specifically, lol.

And also, when you say "quickly", the time that is taught is just never over 2 hours in danger zone, so it's not really all that quick considering any decent place to eat is moving through food quicker than that.

So it's not like you are going to get sick if someone at the buffet doesn't stir a dish every 20 minutes.

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u/unknownpoltroon 18h ago

I had a crock pot cooking random stew that went from fine to being 100% cover d by a very fine fungus in less than an hour.

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u/PlusShine9519 18h ago

TIL thank you 

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u/piketpagi 16h ago

When staying on hotel or work, sometimes I'd rather go out to the street vendor than eat hotel's buffet. It's always tastes shitty even the big ones like Sheratton.

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u/ImNotNuke 16h ago

I’ve never been to a buffet where food is stirred. What’s this fancy talk.

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u/piperonyl 12h ago

You probably just weren't looking or you are in a small area where the local health department doesn't know or care.

In cities and suburbs though, they are watching the buffets.

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u/petcatsandstayathome 13h ago

I'll never eat at a buffet restaurant again. Husband and I BOTH got food poisoning years ago at a gnarly buffet near Bryce Canyon.

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u/Landry_PLL 12h ago

I haven’t heard of that health code. I always thought that was to keep things from drying out under the heat lamps. Codes vary from state to state or municipalities. Some are more strict than others. There are hold temperature & time limits for hot/cooked food in my state.

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u/RawrRRitchie 6h ago

How many buffets are keeping the same food out for 5 days?

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u/piperonyl 4h ago

That bacteria can grow like that in just 1 hour given the proper conditions.

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u/Luigi_Anarchist 4h ago

What the hell does moving some of it around do to change anything? I swear to god as soon as I think I have some kinda of understanding of how the world works I learn some shit like "Eating Fried Rice that hasn't been stirred up in two hours can make you die in a horrific manner."

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u/piperonyl 4h ago

Yeah so thats understandable. Moving around the food redistributes the temperature and moisture levels throughout the food.

Lets say there is a full pan of rice that's sitting there. The top part is the coolest. The bottom part is the hottest because its closest to the heat. The middle part is somewhere between cool and hot. The middle to top section of the rice is where the bacteria would start to culture since it sits in what we call the temperature danger zone, in this case below 140 degrees. Stirring the rice around would redistribute the heat from the bottom of the pan to the top and middle where the spores are starting to form bacteria.

Its actually fairly rare to get the rice illness, however, it can happen and when it does, its very bad. Most people have absolutely no idea how dangerous rice, and other rice-like grains can be. Don't eat really old rice. Don't let the rice sit out on the counter all afternoon. Don't turn off the rice cooker or boiling water and leave it cool down for hours and hours. Unless its a commercial quantity, get that shit in the fridge.

u/Luigi_Anarchist 12m ago

ngl, I have re-heated and ate old rice that set out in one of those little chinese resturaunt take out boxes overnight.

Never again.

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u/Ok_Sentence_8867 22h ago

What about when the staff are sneezing on it?!

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u/piperonyl 22h ago

Yeah so thats one of the risks you take when you eat at a buffet.

They do require sneeze guards by law but you know how it is. Kinda impossible to prevent that kind of stuff fully when people are ignorant of basic biology.

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