Freezing rice?

System

If you change 'rice' to 'food' in that article then it applies. It is not just rice. The whole issue boils down to handling the food sensibly.

Running under cold water? I never have. When I do rice for freezing then it is normally because I want some for the current meal and do extra. By the time the meal is over then the rest of the rice is cool enough to be dealt with.

The risk averse public yet again take a small risk and blow it completely out of proportion. There are probably a lot more cases of salmonella than food poisoning caused by the rice toxins/bacteria.

Can we have a sense of proportion please?

tiff

Erm !!!!!!, I agree with you, see my posts above! I just looked up the info for others in the hope they can see there is no risk if handled properly.

System

Sorry, wasn't aimed at you, more to the people who are trying to say that it is dangerous and should not be done, or you have to chill the rice down very fast

Pink.

The jury is always going to be out on this one.

I have food hygene certificates and know the risks of bacillus cerius, however at home I frequently freeze rice and have been doing so for around twenty years. As others have said the problem is if the rice is allowed to sit around at room temperature.

To answer the op I cool rice immediately after cooking under cold running water, drain for a few minutes and freeze in portion sizes. Defrost in the fridge or it can be microwaved from frozen (covered) if stirred frequently.

As we have an existing thread on freezing rice I've added this thread to it to keep the replies together.

Pink

MoneyMagic01273

!!!!!! wrote: »

Sorry, wasn't aimed at you, more to the people who are trying to say that it is dangerous and should not be done, or you have to chill the rice down very fast

I agree with you (up to a point)

I do believe it is generally perfectly safe to make and freeze rice - BUT - I'm afraid you do really need to ensure it is cooled quickly.

Obviously I'm not at all suggesting for a moment that if you do not do this you are *garuanteed* to get food poisoning. I'm sure the vast majority of the time you'll get away with it and be fine.

But why gamble with your health? The toxins that these bacteria cause can make you VERY ill indeed and even if you believe the odds are low - suggesting that you definately don't need to worry about it is not the best advice. It's common for people to ignore food saftey advice after "years of doing it and never having any problems". But I'll tell you something - it'll only take one food poisoning episode to make them change their tune forever. And I'm not talking a mild stomach ache here. I mean the real deal.

Given there are several easy ways to cool rice quickly which can act as a good saftey measure to effectively get rid of that last bit of risk - its actually common sense and good advice to suggest people do do this in my view.

If you make a personal choice not to and you have been fine, I'm pleased for you.

System

How do you explain the proliferation of rice dishes in cold buffets? If there was that much danger then there would be big warnings anywhere.

I am not saying that the toxins are safe but the risk from them has been blown out of all proportion in the the current risk averse climate we live in. This applies to all areas of our life now, not just food.

It has been mooted previously, and I agree, that we now have a population who are ill prepared to deal with such things as this because they have been brought up in a, where possible, sterile environment and have not been allowed to build up immunities. Where are the kids who eat muddy worms in the garden or spend the day walking around with filthy scratches on their knees? It doesn't happen now because everybody is so scared of disease that in some places it reaches paranoia level. Yes, there were occasions where something more serious developed but by and large kids survived and developed a greater protection against the more common problems that we now have to take extra precautions against.