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Enjoying Rice Safely · Talking FACS

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Welcome to Talking FACS, what you need to know about family,
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food, finance, and fitness.
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This nationally recognized, award-winning podcast is hosted by the University
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of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program.
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Our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families,
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and communities to improve quality of life.
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Hello, and welcome to Talking FACS, what you need to know about family,
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To know about family, food, finance, and fitness. I'm your host,
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Mindy McCulley, Extension Specialist for Instructional Support with Family and
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Consumer Sciences Extension at the University of Kentucky.
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We are housed in the Martin Gatton College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment.
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My guest today is Annhall Norris, Extension Specialist for Food Safety and Preservation.
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And Annhall, we're going to talk about rice, which we think is a really simple,
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easy dish to prepare for our family, but many people might have heard that it
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is not safe to reheat rice.
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So is that something that you can share with us about why reheating and eating
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reheated rice might not be safe?
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Yes, Mindy, I've heard that too. Thanks for having me today.
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I really want to talk about this.
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I've had a lot of questions about this lately, and it's not so much the reheating
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of the rice, it's the cooking and cooling properly.
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Because if rice is left to sit out at room temperature, there is a bacteria,
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Bacillus cereus, that can form a toxin and it forms it at room temperature.
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It multiplies quickly, forms this toxin, and you can get sick within about six
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hours. You'll need a trip to the bathroom.
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And so people think that they They didn't reheat it hot enough,
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but it's actually that the rice was not cooled properly.
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Then that toxin develops and then you can't cook it out of there.
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There's no amount of heat that will get rid of that. And so if it's there,
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it's going to make you sick.
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So you said this is a toxin that multiplies quickly. That sounds very scary.
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It does. It multiplies quickly at room temperature.
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So when you're preparing your rice, you want to cook it according to the package directions.
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And then serve it immediately. If you don't eat it all, you need to cool it
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within two hours and cool it quickly.
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Then when reheating, only reheat it once. So that leftover rice cannot be spread
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out over three or four days.
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You only want to reheat it once and then throw it away if you don't eat it.
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And if you are eating takeout food, for example, or something that you've gotten in a restaurant.
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You've got to remember to include the amount of time that you were eating and
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the amount of time that you had to travel back home in your two-hour span, right?
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That is correct. And so I don't ever take my rice home from a restaurant.
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I just, I'm afraid I'll be in the car too long or forget about it,
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and it's just not worth it to me.
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So I don't usually get a take-home container when I have rice at a restaurant,
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and I'm very careful when I cook it at home. So are there other food products
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that have this same concern?
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Yes. Thank you for bringing that up. I did want to mention that other starchy
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foods like that, so pasta, your noodles, your grains, and potatoes,
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that big starchy material, they have the chance of containing this organism.
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So you want to cool those properly.
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Your baked potatoes, you don't want to wrap them and put them warm into the refrigerator.
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They need to be cooled quickly. the same thing with your pasta noodles and other grains.
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They have the same chance for this organism to produce a toxin and make you sick.
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But most people seem to associate it with rice, but it can be associated with other starchy foods.
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So when you say cool quickly, is there a specific method that people should
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follow when they're cooling their foods?
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Yes. So you want to remove that rice from either the pot or the rice cooker
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that you cooked it in, put it into a shallow container and then refrigerate it quickly.
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Also, you could use a sink full of cold water or an ice bath like that to chill
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that rice quickly and keep that toxin from producing.
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But it's most important to get it out of the warm environment,
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the cooker that it was in or the pan, and put it in a shallow container so that
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it could be cooled quickly.
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Annhall, thanks so much for this very interesting conversation because it's
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not really something that I could ever consider before,
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and I'm sure that our listeners might not have also understood the added concern
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when eating rice or other starchy foods.
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Is there anything else that we need to share before we wrap up?
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Yes, I would like to say to go ahead and keep rice in your menu and don't be afraid of it.
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It is delicious and nutritious, but cook the amount that you need.
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Try to plan so that you don't have leftover rice so that there won't be a concern
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of cooling it properly and that toxin forming and making you sick.
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Thanks so much, Annhall. There's so much to consider whenever we eat rice.
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If you are just tuning in, you're listening to Talking FACS
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Thank you for listening to Talking FACS. We deliver programs focusing on nutrition,
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Music.