It\u2019s\u00a0unlikely she would kill any of them. However, feeding her kids rice and beans left unrefrigerated for hours would might well sicken them in a rather unpleasant way.\u00a0The culprit would be\u00a0bacillus cereus.\u00a0Even if your eyes are glazing over at this point, listen up if you cook \u2013 or just eat \u2013 rice.\n

Most people associate foodborne illnesses with meat or fruits and vegetables. However, rice can also be a source for food poisoning.\n

Uncooked rice can contain spores of\u00a0bacillus cereus\u00a0and those spores survive cooking.\n\n\n\n

$\"Pot$ \n

When rice cools slowly (i.e. you leave it on a counter to cool instead of being put into the refrigerator within 2 hours),\u00a0 bacteria spores grow and produce a toxin that can make you sick.\n

Reheating the rice won\u2019t kill those spores.\n

For most adults, food poisoning from cooked rice contaminated with\u00a0bacillus cereus subsides within 24 hours without serious or permanent injury. However, it may more severely affect those with compromised immune systems and young children.\n

If you\u2019re interested in the specifics of how the bacteria does its nasty work, check out the FDA\u2019s appropriately-titled\u00a0Bad Bug Book.\n

We don\u2019t live in a perfectly safe world and you can never totally avoid all risk of food poisoning. But here are some tips to keep you healthy.\n

Tips to Help Minimize the Risk of Sickness from Cooked Rice\n
\n
Once you cook rice, cool any leftovers (including dishes containing rice) quickly. Ideally refrigerate it within 1 hour, though some authorities say within 2 hours is OK. If you have a lot of rice, transfer it to a clean, wide container. The rice cools more quickly if you spread it in a thinner layer, rather than leave it piled up.
\nRefrigerate rice only for a short period of days. According to numerous food safety experts, you should only refrigerate cooked rice for\u00a01 day. I have kept rice for 4-5 days, the storage time considered allowable by the\u00a0USA Rice Federation. But after researching for this post, I will aim to use or throw away (refrigerated) cooked rice after 1-2 days.
\nReheat cooked rice\u00a0only once.\n\n
$\"How$ \n
\n
Now that I have researched rice safety, I\u2019m in a bit paranoid.\n
But\u00a0I do love rice, not to mention\u00a0all kinds of dishes\u00a0in which it is a major component.\n
$\"3$ \n
\n
\n
\n
Intellectually, I know bacteria does not lurk in every pot of rice I make or serve. Still, I feel like a medical student who gets every disease they read about.\n
So, to ease my mind, I\u2019m going to re-read this wonderful piece from Harold McGee on sensible, real world balancing of risk and cooking reward.\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week a friend sent me an urgent text. Due to a miscommunication with her babysitter, a full pot of rice, veggies, and black beans sat on the counter all day. When my friend got home from work, she found the pot still unrefrigerated. Tired, she was loath to throw out what was supposed to …\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":82822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-hacks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82816"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82823,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82816\/revisions\/82823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}