cooked rice in fridge

lobbyludd

sweetilemon wrote: »

The problem is most bacteria can be killed from cooking, the bacteria on rice cannot be killed so it needs to be quickly cooled to slow reproduction & eaten with a day or two. 3 days is a bit much & if it wasnt cooled quickly I would bin.

I didn't think it was that the bacteria couldn't be killed by heating, I thought that the risk is that very rarely rice can harbour bacteria that produce botulism toxin, and although they will be killed by the heat the toxin won't be destroyed by cooking temperatures? So if they've had an appreciable amount of time to breed and produce the toxin, you can be very ill.

Having said all that - I reheat rice the next day but wouldn't after 3 days.

teddysmum

NHS advice


http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/Can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning.aspx?CategoryID=51

meritaten

I wouldn't risk it after 3 days. in fact, I wouldn't risk it after 24 hours.
if I cant use a portion of rice within 24 hours I freeze it. you can chuck it into stir fries or ding it from the freezer. you may need to add a splash of water but its safer.

Steve059

Uncooked rice may contain the spores of a bacterium called Bacillus Cereus, which survive cooking. If cooked rice is allowed to stay warm, then these spores germinate, grow and produce a toxin. The bacterium is destroyed by cooking or reheating, but not the toxin.

That 'dodgy curry' was probably nothing to do with the curry.

[Deleted User]

I too would bin it I was once extremely ill after eating reheated rice ( I reallly felt as though I was dying) and the cost of fresh rice is minimal.I am not one to waste anything but to me rice is a no-no.

Steve059

JackieO wrote: »

I too would bin it I was once extremely ill after eating reheated rice ( I reallly felt as though I was dying) and the cost of fresh rice is minimal.I am not one to waste anything but to me rice is a no-no.

I didn't want to be too alarmist in my previous post, but Bacillus Cereus toxin has killed otherwise perfectly healthy people.

sparrer

You learn something new every day! I was going to say that over the past 30+ years I've cooked batches of rice and portioned them for the freezer, I've eaten left over rice the next day in a rice salad, and as aggypanthus said I've had Indian (and Chinese) for lunch the next day.

But I won't say any of that because I've just learned how dangerous it is! :eek:

System

Egg-fried rice is re-heated/re-cooked rice, isn't it?

sweetilemon

Sorry, yes, its the toxin that cant be killed by cooking. I stand corrected. I do cook rice for the purpose of re-heating for fried rice but I run it under the cold tap when drained and refridgerate straight away. Would never reheat takeaway rice as its most likely been reheated already.

gayleygoo

I often reheat rice the next day, as long as it was cooled quickly and into the fridge within 20-30mins. Even takeaway rice gets reheated, although that is a fair bit riskier considering fried rice has already been cooked twice.

When I worked in a chinese restaurant, the portions were huge and people would often ask to take their leftovers home. This was generally fine, but we tried to discourage them taking leftover rice, since it had been sitting on their tables for at least half an hour, and would not be in the fridge until they got home later. The biggest risk is if they don't reheat it properly. There were two complaints that people thought they had food poisoning when I worked there, and it transpired that both people had taken leftover rice home. They didn't take it any further because we'd wrote down in a book that they had done so!

And 3 days later is a bit much for rice I think, I know it's hard to throw it out but it really is safer.