Community Chat

[SeaMaiden]

leftover rice grows bacteria very fast... best to put it in the fridge right away and not let it sit out or cool before refrigerating... Also, put in shallow dishes- two if you have a large portion so it cools off in fridge quickly.

[golding76]

My own cautionary tale (that I may have provided several years ago but is certainly worth restating to prevent another individual from suffering any sort of health discomfort or, even worse, tragedy):

At one time, I worked at a federal facility near Dulles International Airport.  In our building was the sort of cafeteria/eatery that was common at that time and still is, an Asian food-based luncheonette that always had an array of hot foods sitting out on a hot table from 11:00 a.m. to about 2:00 p.m.

At about 1:00 p.m., I dropped in and chose some fried rice among the other goodies I desired from the hot table.  This was a Monday.  I am deliberately including this detail.

That night, I experienced not only the vomiting and diarrhea that signals food poisoning or bad food having been ingested but I also had the worst stomach cramping and a general feeling of MY BODY SHUTTING DOWN.  I had never experienced anything like it and, thank heavens, haven't since.

I felt so weak, so unwell, that I woke my husband to tell him that I thought I was dying.  Yes, I used those words.  Up to that point, I was trying to make my way through this on my own in the living room and bathroom.

Things did subside to what seemed a non-life-threatening state after a bit more time passed.

The first thing in the morning, I went to my primary care doctors.  The doctor who took care of me said that there is such a thing as "Fried Rice Syndrome" (or something similar; I don't remember it exactly now).  He advised never to eat fried rice found on a hot table on a Monday because you do not know if it is left over from the Friday before.  Also, he said that leftover fried rice was the culprit at a daycare facility whose children all came down with gastro-intestinal problems.  He said he will always remember that day in his life when he had to treat a stream of pre-kindergartners. 

Of course, you never know how old the fried rice is when you buy it in any mode.  The doctor said it is a bacteria factory when it spoils.

[godi]

That's absolute horrible! 

[Effie54]

Hmmmm......I'm not sure I'm buying it. There has to be more to it than that. 

[phoenixbrd]

Such a sad event...

After reading the details, it appears the food was already tainted before it left the restaurant. If so, leaving the food out is irrelevant in this case.  I wonder if there was follow-up on those eating at the restaurant.

The medical report states "recovery"....I understand the use of this word in a literal sense but there is no such thing for this young man losing all his fingers and legs. His life has changed drastically and there is no going back.  Even if he sued the restaurant...no amount of money will compensate for the loss of quality of life.

Moral:  Yes this is scary, you don't know what you are ingesting when you eat restaurant food.

[Mindy D]

@Northray  @phoenixbrd  @Effie54 @godi @golding76 Look for my post Fried Rice Syndrome, here on the Forum. 

For the case cited here in the Forum, there's a case of meningococcal fulmians and we are not told of the offending organism. It could be due to other organisms present in the foods he had just eaten or in some other source, not necessarily the rice. The patient di$ not have symptom# characteristics of most B cereus infections. Unfortunately, we cannot access the full article to see what organism was found.

https://community.qvc.com/t5/Wellness/Fried-Rice-Syndrome/m-p/5653479#M169249

[magicmoodz]

I once worked for a company that had a commercial kitchen, a chef (contracted) and three executive and beautifully decorated dining rooms. There were 14 employees so you could say overkill! It's not like we weren't located downtown with a plethora of restaurants nearby.

Because of the commercial kitchen status the Board of Health would periodically stop by the ensure there were no violations. I remember we were once written up for the chef having made rice and left it sitting on the stove to be served for a luncheon. That is when I first learned that rice grows bacteria faster than just about any other food.

[Greeneyedlady21]

Beth Dalbey,Patch Staff

Posted Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 11:59 am 

BOSTON, MA — One of the doctors involved in a case discussion about a 19-year-old New England teen who underwent multiple amputations because of meningoccal disease is pushing back against widely published reports the patient became ill after eating bad leftovers.The

story was published by multiple outlets, including Forbes, USA Today, Patch and others, after a fictional dramatization on YouTube brought new attention to a case challenge published in the New England Journal Of Medicine last spring.

The YouTuber responsible, whose username is Chubbyemu, tied the teen’s illness to a leftover chicken, rice and lo mein meal — incorrectly so, according to the editor of the article, Dr. Eric Rosenberg, the director of the clinical microbiology laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, where the teen was treated.

He told The Boston Globe that what the patient ate was “completely irrelevant” and that it “was horrifying that this is how medical disinformation can be so easily disseminated.”

“There’s absolutely no history in the medical literature of this kind of bacteria being transmitted by food,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told The Globe. “It’s baloney.”

[Mindy D]

@magicmoodz @It's not just rice, and it's a specific bacteria, B cereus. When you make or order rice, take it and put it in shallow containers and refrigerate quickly. It won't matter if you wait five to ten minutes until you can handle the rice to transfer it to the fridge. In other countries, B cereus contamination has occurred in other foods. In he case here on the Forum, we are not able to see what organism led to the meningococcal 

fulminans. We are not sure of the source because we can not read the entire report. 

[Mindy D]

@Northray @Greeneyedlady21 @magicmoodz @phoenixbrd @Effie54 @I got to the bottom of this. The organism that caused the illness IS NOT FOOD BORN. The 19-year-old did not get meningococcal disease from his food. 

I tried to open the full report but there was a charge so I went online to get more information. Below is quoted from 

 

"No, bad leftovers didn’t cause teen’s life-threatening infection, amputations"

Media misreads medical case study, blames non-foodborne infection on leftovers by Beth Mole- 2/28/2022, 5:59 PM in Ars Technica online.

"In reality, the 19-year-old male suffered a rare and extremely severe complication from a blood infection with a bacterium that causes meningococcal disease. The bacterium—known as Neisseria meningitidis—is not foodborne, and its incubation period is longer than just a few hours.

N. meningitidis harmlessly colonize the noses and throats of about 10 percent of people. It spreads through very close contact and directly swapping saliva, such as through coughing, kissing, and living in close quarters, like dormitories. Given the risk in group settings, many colleges and universities require students to get meningococcal vaccines before attending. Still, there has never been a documented case of N. meningitis spreading via food."