Thanks to , '' has been turning up in news headlines recently – even though it’s a problematic and misleading term. It refers to a type of food poisoning caused by : spores that are present in a variety of foods, from rice to cereals. The case that reactivated interest in this illness actually happened in 2008 and refers to a who tragically died after eating spaghetti that had been left at room temperature for five days.
Even though this lethal example of food poisoning was caused by pasta, there have been countless news headlines that have described this as a case of ‘fried rice syndrome’ without even questioning the dubious phrase. As experts have pointed out, this (which can also cause nausea and vomiting) isn’t a rice-only phenomenon (in fact, another high-profile bacillus cereus death was triggered by a that had been initially left out at a picnic in Belgium, in 2003).
It reminds me of the fears around , even though monosodium glutamate naturally occurs in foods such as tomatoes, cheese and mushrooms – yet no Italian restaurant ever has to declare that their menus are "MSG-free".
"Italian cuisine's actually got more MSG in it than what might be added into an Asian dish," tells SBS Food. The dietitian is the program director of nutrition and food sciences at the University of South Australia and I first interviewed her for the episode of my new SBS podcast,
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Rice: Dietary staple, daily greeting, and nutritional villain?
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11/10/202324:07
On the show, she explains that cooking then cooling rice can increase the resistant starch in a dish – a type of fibre that's good for you.
"But on cooking and cooling rice, we have another problem," she explains on the podcast. And that’s Bacillus cereus, which is "everywhere" – the spores are in flour, rice and other foods.
"And what happens is when you cook it, you're activating the bacteria, and they release more spores, and they also release toxins. Rice is the famous one or infamous one I should say – the longer you leave it at room temperature, the more of these spores are going to be released, then the more risk you are of having food poisoning."
Because bacillus cereus is heat-resistant, cooking your food again won’t solve the problem. But there is a simple way to avoid it. Refrigerate your leftovers – whether it’s rice or pasta – as soon as possible.
"If you leave it out for up to two hours, you can pop it back in the fridge and then consume it again," she tells SBS Food. "If you leave it out for four hours it's still edible, but you can't return it to the fridge… you've got to throw it out."
These are the guideline recommendations, but it's worth exercising your judgement – particularly when temperatures are high. Think of hot Christmas days, where food is left out for long grazing periods.
"Perhaps you bring them out in smaller amounts," she says. That way, dishes are quickly consumed and aren’t left to deteriorate or become food poisoning disasters.
Rice pilaf.
To ensure food is safe to consume, keep things refrigerated and cool – or very hot as they’re reheated.
"Between 5° and 60°C is where all the different types of bacteria will start to be active and reproduce and double. So if you keep things out of that zone, you're fine," she says.
It's a practice the dietitian is familiar with – she grew up with Greek rice staples, such as dolmades and . "Mum always just put the rice in the fridge if there was any leftover," she says. "And I don't think there was ever any leftover."
Today, when the professor has uneaten grains, she stores them in the freezer and then takes them to work in that cold state. "So the time it spends between 5° to 60° is reduced," she says.
"I don't let my kids take it to school because yeah, the lockers are often outside in the sun," she says. Any rice will be in a pretty sad condition after hours in the heat.
"If they're desperate, I put an ice pack in there," she says.
If you're worried that this will remove the sticky texture that some varieties have, she explains that you shouldn’t be concerned. It's the type of rice you use – rather than leaving it unwashed – that determines this effect.
As for that problematic term, 'fried rice syndrome', I don't really have an answer for why that name still sticks. While working on the rice episode of the podcast, the only fatal examples of bacillus cereus poisoning I came across were the two tragedies in Belgium involving overly old, badly stored pasta.
Apparently, the name comes from the first known case of bacillus cereus poisoning, which apparently involved in a Chinese restaurant. But surely the point of fried rice is to use chilled, refrigerated day-old rice (which is a little sturdier) and then cook it on high heat so it doesn’t become a soggy mess – i.e. cooling it and sufficiently reheating it, as the guidelines suggest? Perhaps the problem isn’t so much fried rice itself, but poorly handled and cooked fried rice.
Credit: Feast / Olga Bennett
