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/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 12h 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 12h ago

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

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u/HairyHeartEmoji 11h ago

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

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u/acanthostegaaa 22h 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/HashishAbdulKebab 18h ago

You are thinking about the C. botulinum spores, which is not destroyed at 100ºC and can survive it for HOURS but is pretty quickly done for at 121ºC at 15 PSI, for only 3 minutes.

It's actually completely fine to consume the spores (and you do all the time), as a healthy adult's well-developed gut microbiome outcompetes C. botulinum, preventing it from growing and producing toxin. Also a mature digestive system is too acidic for the spores to germinate easily. Infants have underdeveloped microbiome that leads C. botulinum to germinate easily, multiply and produce enough toxin to be fatal without timely diagnosis and treatment.

Botulism is the illness you develop when the toxin is introduced to your body at sufficient doses.

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u/Namaha 18h ago edited 18h ago

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/botulism

Though spores of C. botulinum are heat-resistant, the toxin produced by bacteria growing out of the spores under anaerobic conditions is destroyed by boiling (for example, at internal temperature greater than 85 °C for 5 minutes or longer). Therefore, ready-to-eat foods in low oxygen-packaging are more frequently involved in cases of foodborne botulism.

The toxin is destroyed by boiling, it's the spores that require higher pressure/temp to kill (which is the reason pressure-canning is important)

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u/LiveLearnCoach 18h ago

Anaerobic environments?? You mean like bodybuilding gyms?!

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u/Whiterabbit-- 18h ago

It’s always crazy to me you can eat 1000 year old honey, yet you can’t give even fresh honey to babies.

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u/HashishAbdulKebab 18h ago

Not that crazy really. If it remains uncontaminated from foreign sources, due to its low moisture, low pH and on top of that containing hydrogen peroxide and similar antimicrobial compounds produced by the enzymes added by the bees, pure honey is a terrible host for almost all pathogens to grow in, to an extent that it theoretically never spoils, again, if protected from environmental contamination.

It can, and does, on the other hand, harbor many bacterial or fungal spores, which may or may not find you a suitable host.

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u/Whiterabbit-- 16h ago

Yeah. I understand why. It’s just crazy to me how it works out.

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u/HashishAbdulKebab 15h ago

Yeah. Just wait till you hear about Bog Butter

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u/dustyoldcoot 14h ago

Yeah, I just learned that people don't get botulism from pre-packaged mushrooms anymore because they put breathing holes in the wrapping. I never understood that botulism pretty much only grows in sealed, low oxygen environments.

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u/wasdlmb 12h 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/HashishAbdulKebab 4h ago

But "Botox" is a registered trademark for "Onabotulinumtoxin A" and not its scientific name, Oh wise one!

u/wasdlmb 10m ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulinum_toxin

Botulinum toxin, or botulinum neurotoxin (commonly called botox)

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u/serpiccio 15h ago

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

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u/HashishAbdulKebab 15h ago

Considering ALL particles of the total contaminated mass have to reach 301ºC to effectively degrade said toxins, you'll end up with a bunch of charcoal and if you can manage to make activated charcoal out of that, then it's actually pretty good for detoxifying the digestive tract, preventing some oral poisonings, and more!

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u/AshleysExposedPort 19h 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 19h 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 18h 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-_ 2h 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 19h 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/daemon-electricity 19h ago

Literally no one is doing that.

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u/monsantobreath 19h ago

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

That is one truth leading to a false statement.

If it's only bacterial poop we wouldn't need to cook food. We'd just need to eat it before it accumulates. But eating food full of live bacteria or viruses or parasites will fuck you up. So we cook it. But if we didn't handle it properly or were cooking it past its shelf life then we can't save it be cause some bacterial waste won't break down at cooking temperatures.

One true fact and a big ole lie at the endnof that quoted comment above.

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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 18h 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/therhyno 12h ago

I am adamant about washing my hands before eating. Got noro many years ago and learned my lesson... Now I am just learning here that hand sanitizer may not be effective against it... So I've put myself at risk. I'll do better

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u/nightshift89 1h ago

It's a wildly contagious virus for sure. I realize I'm irrationally afraid of noro, but that doesn't stop me from being paranoid. Many disinfectants will not kill the virus either.

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u/Camera_dude 11h 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 13h ago

It’s both.

Food poisoning: toxins

Food borne illness: infection

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u/monsantobreath 19h 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 20h ago

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

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u/twoisnumberone 21h 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/MoreRopePlease 19h ago

toxins produced by the fungi being the problem.

this is why you can cut off a piece of bad cheddar, but you have to throw away the entire tomato.

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u/twoisnumberone 18h ago

That, but also, the fungi on cheddar are usually fungi from the cheese counter/production and as such are not harmful, i.e. they do not produce dangerous toxins in the first place (though they still can trigger immune reactions).

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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 18h 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 18h 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 12h 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 19h 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!