Edit: Qingchen
In daily life, egg fried rice is loved by people for its simplicity, speed, and deliciousness. However, there has always been a controversial topic about the production of egg fried rice - overnight rice is the soul. Therefore, in order to pursue this taste, many people deliberately put more rice every time they cook rice, so that the leftover rice can be used to make fried rice the next day. But did you know that doing so can make you suffer from "fried rice syndrome", which can even be life-threatening in severe cases?
What is "fried rice syndrome"? It refers to a type of foodborne illness that causes nausea, vomiting, stomach discomfort, and abdominal pain after eating rice and pasta left at room temperature for a long time, and the cause of this disease is "Bacillus cereus".
Bacillus cereus, also known as Cactus bacillus, is widely distributed in water, soil, and air, and the optimal growth temperature range is 20 °C ~ 45 °C, but it is cunning by nature, and when the surrounding temperature is higher than 60 °C, it will enter a dormant state, and in the case of poor growth conditions, it will produce a "shell" called "spores" to protect itself, so as to resist the high temperature of 100 °C and avoid death.
Bacillus cereus prefers a wide range of foods that are high in starch. Once the rice is cooked, it is usually left at room temperature for several hours to cool or left overnight before being made into fried rice. In this process, even if the rice is contaminated, there is no obvious change in appearance, and there is no spoilage or deterioration, which is difficult to perceive with the naked eye. The data showed that at 30°C, it only took 9 hours for Bacillus cereus in rice to reach the toxin production standard, while at 35°C, the time to detect toxin production was reduced to 6 hours.
Bacillus cereus contaminates food and releases two different toxins depending on the type of bacteria and the environment in which it grows, resulting in different clinical manifestations in humans (see table below).
Maybe you're secretly glad you've never had food poisoning because of a bowl of leftovers, but in fact, there are not a few such people. Li Ning, director of the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, said that nearly 70 percent of the outbreaks of Bacillus cereus in mainland China were caused by rice and flour foods, of which rice accounted for nearly 60 percent, and mainly occurred in school canteens.
Of course, egg fried rice is delicious and convenient, and it's impossible to resist its temptation, so how can you make an egg fried rice with peace of mind?
◆The best thing to do is to eat the rice of the same day, and stir-fry the steamed rice directly with eggs, so as not to create a chance for it to breed at all.
◆ At room temperature, if the leftover rice is not eaten immediately, it should be put in a clean and airtight container and sent to the refrigerator as soon as possible. It takes time and temperature for Bacillus cereus to reproduce and toxinize, and low water activity and confined conditions can inhibit the growth of Bacillus cereus.
◆ Once symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea occur after eating, you should go to the hospital for treatment as soon as possible.
In addition to egg fried rice, some people also like to eat Korean bibimbap, and even more so, the material is "overnight rice + overnight dish", as everyone knows, this way of eating is more harmful! Because overnight dishes contain nitrite, which is easy to cause food poisoning.
What is nitrite? There are two main types of nitrite, one is potassium nitrite and the other is sodium nitrite. Are they toxic? Yes, nitrite toxicity is acute and chronic. A large amount of ingestion in a short period of time can cause death (half lethal dose of 57mg/kg), and long-term, low-dose ingestion may accumulate in the human body, and then cause cell cancer.
Where does the nitrite in overnight dishes come from? There are two sources. One is inherent to the vegetable itself. As vegetables grow, they absorb ammonia from the soil, which in turn produces nitrates and nitrites. In terms of content, leafy vegetables were the highest, followed by roots, melons, onions and garlic, cauliflower, eggplant, beans, and aquatic vegetables had the lowest content.
The other is that during storage, nitrate is gradually converted into nitrite due to the metabolism of bacteria or vegetables themselves. On the other hand, as long as bacterial activity and the metabolism of vegetables can be inhibited, the nitrite content will not rise rapidly. According to the research of Ningbo Food Testing and Research Institute, after 12 hours of normal temperature, the nitrite content in leafy vegetables increased significantly, and after 24 hours, it was enough to reach a dose harmful to the human body.
It can be seen that leftovers and leftovers are seriously harmful to human health, so before cooking, we must calculate the amount of food and try to achieve no leftovers, which is good for health and wallet.
Reference sources: Fujian CDC, Jinshan District CDC, the answer is as follows, 21st Century Business Herald, tadpole stave, etc
Part of the image source: Fujian CDC
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