That Leftover Rice Could Be Dangerous. Here’s How

Meal prepping is an effective way to save lots of time and guarantee you have got dinner through the week so that you simply aren’t spending time within the kitchen after an extended day at work. However, not all meals are made for reheating. While staples like hen and greens are straightforward to reheat, rice could be harmful. If you have ever puzzled whether or not it is fit for human consumption leftover rice, there are some issues to pay attention to earlier than popping it within the microwave. 

There’s a small however very actual probability that consuming leftover rice or pasta might provide you with meals poisoning. The results are generally known as “fried rice syndrome,” since fried rice is usually made with leftover rice. Not solely can outdated rice make your abdomen depressing, you would possibly even find yourself within the emergency room. Reddit customers have reported some harrowing experiences with “fried rice syndrome,” so you may positively need to keep away from this type of meals poisoning.

Here’s why it’s possible you’ll need to keep away from making ready a big serving of rice for the week forward, and how one can correctly retailer and put together rice to forestall potential meals poisoning. 

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Why does leftover rice have a threat of meals poisoning?

All kinds of raw rice can comprise spores of Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that may trigger gastrointestinal sickness like vomiting or diarrhea. The spores are heat-resistant and do not die when cooked. As the rice cools and enters the meals hazard zone of between 40 and 140 levels Fahrenheit, the micro organism begins to shortly reproduce. There are about 63,400 instances of meals poisoning from Bacillus cereus yearly within the US, based on the Cleveland Clinic.

The large threat for meals poisoning arises when rice is sitting out for greater than an hour — that is when the spores of micro organism can multiply tremendously. The micro organism is not an issue in the event you eat the rice instantly. Illness is way more widespread from consuming rice that has sat out at room temperature for a couple of hours, will get refrigerated and is then eaten a couple of days later. If your rice sits out for 2 hours at room temperature or one hour at 90 levels Fahrenheit, it ought to be thrown away, based on Food Network.

What’s one of the best ways to retailer rice to keep away from meals poisoning? 

To stop meals poisoning, it’s best to put your leftover rice within the fridge quickly after you are performed cooking it — the UK’s National Health Service recommends storing it “ideally inside one hour” — and restrict the period of time your leftover rice is within the fridge. 

However, you need to watch out to not put a scorching container of meals within the fridge, as a result of that may improve the temperature of different meals and probably result in bacterial progress there as properly. Food Network recommends portioning the big batch of rice into smaller containers and cooling the rice to room temperature (round 70 levels). 

The NHS recommends preserving your rice within the fridge for not more than at some point till reheating, whereas the US Department of Agriculture’s FoodKeeper app says you may retailer cooked rice for 4 to 6 days. Food Network says you may proceed reheating the rice all through the three to 4 days that it has been saved, whereas the NHS recommends not reheating greater than as soon as. 

What is the most secure method to reheat leftover rice?

If you’re planning on reheating your rice, be sure that the rice comes out of the microwave or off the range high steaming scorching with an inner temperature of 165 levels Fahrenheit or larger. And the following time you are craving rice, restrict the quantity you make to what you and your dinner companions plan on consuming that day. This additionally helps to forestall meals waste, alongside the advantages of avoiding meals poisoning.