General Chat

but I'm sure I've read somewhere that you shouldn't reheat rice. Am I right.
Sorry to pick your brains on a Sunday!

that's true....I've heard that before.

Speaking as someone who once had severe food poisoning from rice, I think if you cook rice a nd wash it through with cold water & refridgerate it, you can reheat it the same day, on no account eat rice that is more than 24 hours old, hot or cold.

Dee x

Thanks both, thats what I've read. As you say not worth taking the risk.
Best laid plans and all that, well re think on Sunday lunch then, back to the drawing board.

I had heard that if anyone gets food poisoning from a takeaway its not the meat as you would might expect but the rice - amazing. I was horrified to find a young girl in work reheating rice that she had kept in her desk drawer for two days!!! I told her to bin it if she valued her life.

rice was flagged up on a food hygiene course i did a while back you've just jogged my memory
chris x

Bizarre isn't it, makes you wonder if any Chinese takeaway does it

My cousin always reheats left overs from her takeaways or carry outs as she calls them.Rice being one thing,she has never been ill by doing that.

I have reheated rice before and had no illeffects but after reading about it on here a while ago, am more careful now. I always use brown basmati rice which is a bit more expensive but not worth being ill over, so might cook a bit less or throw out any left overs.
Lizx

OH always reheats rice when I have cooked the meal earlier. It's heated in the microwave - so I suppose it cooked hot enough to kill anything!

Rice is a very high risk food for food poisoning. I work in a school kitchen and we have to keep the rice at a very high temperature before we send it out to other schools so that it isn't in just a warm state for too long.

The problem is that the particular bug in rice is not killed by cooking. To do that you'd need higher temperatures and longer cooking than rice needs to be edible.

It is safe eaten freshly cooked because the bug is in very small quantities and is in itself harmless but it produces a toxin if kept at warm temperatures (ie left hanging around at room temperature).
The toxin builds up until it is enough to make people ill.

If you have left over rice you must cool it as quickly as possible then put it in a fridge. It can be reheated for another meal or eaten as a rice salad but under no circumstances reheat twice or leave it out of the fridge.

When I did my Food Hygiene certificate for Guides the tutor told us he had been a food inspector and was horrified to find some Chinese restaurants on his rounds were cooking big batches and leaving it on the side in the kitchen. They thought it was safe because it is a vegetable.

I do as he suggested and never eat rice salad which I haven't made myself. It worries me if I go to a party (especially one in a warm marquee) and find rice lying about for hours.

Sue

t's true that you could get food poisoning from eating reheated rice. But it's not actually the reheating that's the problem – it's the way the rice has been stored before reheating.

Uncooked rice can contain spores of Bacillus cereus, bacteria that can cause food poisoning. When the rice is cooked, the spores can survive. Then, if the rice is left standing at room temperature, the spores will germinate into bacteria. These bacteria will multiply and may produce toxins (poisons) that cause vomiting or diarrhoea. Reheating the rice won't get rid of these toxins.

So, the longer cooked rice is left at room temperature, the more likely it is that bacteria, or the toxins they produce, could stop the rice being safe to eat.

It's best to serve rice when it has just been cooked. If that isn't possible, cool the rice as quickly as possible (ideally within one hour) and keep it in the fridge for no more than one day until reheating.

Remember that when you reheat any food, you should always check that it's piping hot all the way through, and avoid reheating more than once.

Taken from http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/asksam/keepingfoodsafe/asksamcooking/