this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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Weird News - Things that make you go 'hmmm'

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The bacteria is best known for causing a type of food poisoning called "Fried Rice Syndrome," since rice is sometimes cooked and left to cool at room temperature for a few hours. During that time, the bacteria can contaminate it and grow. B. cereus is especially dangerous because it produces a toxin in rice and other starchy foods that is heat resistant and may not die when the food it infects is cooked.

And

Unfortunately, that was the case for a 20-year-old student, who passed away after eating five-day-old pasta.

His story was described in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology a few years back, but has since resurfaced due to some YouTube videos and Reddit posts. According to article, every Sunday the student would make his meals for the entire week so he wouldn't need to deal with making it on the weekdays. One Sunday, he cooked up some spaghetti, then put it in Tupperware containers so that days later, he could just add some sauce to it, reheat it and enjoy it.

However, he didn't store the pasta in the fridge, rather he left it out on the counter. After five days of the food sitting out at room temperature, he heated some up and ate it. While he noticed an odd taste to the food, he figured it was just due to the new tomato sauce he added to it.

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[–] BigBenis 1 points 14 minutes ago

Shoot I'll leave rice on the counter all day sometimes... I should stop doing that.

[–] TrickDacy 12 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

This thread is interesting. Everywhere ranging from "I eat pizza from the counter after 3 days" to "yeah I would never eat anything left out on the counter for over 2 hours".

And someone said everything in their fridge is food they cooked over 5 days ago.... Why??

[–] [email protected] 3 points 52 minutes ago

And someone said everything in their fridge is food they cooked over 5 days ago…

I've been doing this for years and years. Maybe not wayyy more than 5 days but it is usually about a week. I don't have all that much time after work so I don't want to waste time cooking and I'm not wasting money on take out so I do all my cooking for the week on Saturday or Sunday. I don't do what the poor kid in the article did though, if anything I put things in the fridge that are still way too hot but I never wanted to risk something like that.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly 5 days out on the counter was asking for trouble - that long is tempting fate even when stored properly in the fridge

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, cooked pasta? Two days tops, and I personally wouldn’t touch it after one. And why not refrigerate it? Did they not own one, because I can’t see any other logical explanation to not do this.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Two days on pasta? I give 5-7 in the fridge, and six months if I freeze it. Maybe a little less if its a dairy based sauce like alfredo

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Yeah, like I said, tops. I wouldn't eat it personally, but I don’t think you’ll die.

[–] capital 17 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Im astounded at the speed that this can kill.

If I’m reading the article correctly, it was <24 hrs? God damn.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 minute ago

Toxins generated by bacteria and some fungi are EXTREMELY poisonous. The unfortunate victim essentially ate a poisonous mushroom in the form of pasta.

I am shocked to see how many people leave food on the counter to eat later. Refrigerate it immediately! Not one hour, not twenty minutes! As soon as you’re done eating, to the fridge it goes!

Nothing ever happens to you until it happens, and we’re not talking about stomach pain, but almost instant death.

[–] Randelung 8 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Missed opportunity for "the next day he woke up dead."

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago

Now how the hell does someone wake up dead?

[–] [email protected] 245 points 8 hours ago (14 children)

This made me really anxious about how long I tend to leave food out up until the moment I read that he left it out on the counter FOR FIVE DAYS

[–] Tikiporch 9 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The CDC says no more than two hours for perishable food, and one hour if ambient temp is 90°F or above.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (2 children)

For the 96% of the world that aren't stuck in the 1700, that means 32°C

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 hours ago

Save someone else having to look up the conversion: 1700 metric years is roughly 3092 years fahrenheit

[–] hardaysknight 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, if you aren’t stuck in the 1700s, you can just google what it converts to…

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 hours ago (6 children)

I lived with a flatmate that used to pull this sort of shit.

Typical process:

She would remove the frozen chicken from the fridge, put it on the outdoor table, then go to class. Would come home to a defrosted chicken, which she would take and chop in half on the kitchen floor. Then she would put one half back in the freezer, usually on top. Lovely going to get ice to find it's covered in frozen defrosted chicken blood. She would then use the other half to cook up a soup in our one big pot we had. This pot would live on the back corner of the stove for a week. Or two. Each day she would take a ladle full and warm it up to eat. The big pot wasn't kept warm or in the fridge.

I got to the point where as soon as we saw the mould growing out of the pot, we would biff the entire contents and water blast the pot outside. Much to her annoyance.

She would then just repeat again the next week.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 minutes ago

My MIL does this, to this day, regularly, and it baffles me how she doesn't get food poisoning.

She most recently let a chicken carcass hang out at room temp for 36 hours before boiling it to make a soup, which, okay, boil it long and high enough you're probably fine. But then after it was done the stove was turned off and it sat out for another 18 hours before being put in the fridge.

Also she doesn't believe that hard boiled eggs need to be refrigerated, I've seen a batch sit for 7+ days.

She also thinks I'm wasteful if I toss something that's moldy, she scrapes the mold off and eats it. But based on what I've read, there are unseen spores you're just ingesting so screw that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 minutes ago

Man she just really wanted to see if her body could take it. Imagine the confusion at the horrible shits she must've had regularly. Couldn't have anything to do with those food practices.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 31 minutes ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 minutes ago
[–] Professorozone 10 points 3 hours ago

When's the funeral?

[–] Brekky 11 points 4 hours ago

Kitchen floor you say??

[–] clickyello 17 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

what the fuck??? how did you not pull her aside and say "hey, not ok"??

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Oh we did.

Regularly.

But as poor students, it was pick your battles. Her dick boyfriend used to drive them both home drunk as, then cook chicken nuggets at 3am setting off the smoke alarms on a Tuesday...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

The despair I felt reading that was awful. Also it was super gross; I had to pause halfway through.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

Good times.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 7 hours ago

Same lol. 5 days is absolutely insane.

[–] capt_wolf 10 points 5 hours ago

Never fails to amaze me how so many people don't understand basic food storage.

My clients, constantly: "What do you mean I can't just throw this open bag in the fridge?", "What do you mean, 'foil isn't airtight'?", "I don't know how long it's been in there! What do you mean it expired a month ago?" and my absolute favorite, "You can't throw my moldy food away! You owe me money for that!"

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[–] Ledivin 83 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

5 days out of the fridge - even sealed - is straight insanity. Of course he got sick eventually, I'm just surprised it took so long 😱😱😱

[–] [email protected] 41 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I'm surprised it wasn't visibly mouldy at that point

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

The article says he stored it in Tupperware. Spaghetti in an airtight container, like rice and other carbs, take a lot longer to show signs of mold. So maybe not in the first week. But absolutely after a month!

And for anybody curious who wants to try the science: reminder that if you see visible mold, it's already too late. The spores are deep in the food and what's visible is just a fraction of the fungus!

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 8 hours ago (7 children)

I just realised ... The bacteria is ... Seriously ... Called B. Cereus?

[–] reddit_sux 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The name's Cereus, Bacillus Cereus

Why so Cereus?

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 7 hours ago

I am serious, and don't call me bacteria.

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[–] Sumocat 23 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Terrible headline. The bacteria that killed him is associated with ‘Fried Rice Syndrome’ but FRS is named for leftovers stored in the fridge, not uneaten food left on the counter.

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