To think that this is dangerous, and a home economics teacher should know better?

[SaggyOldClothCatPuss]

DD had food tech first lesson this morning. She made chilli con carne, with rice. It has spent the whole day, in a tupperware container, on the worktop in the classroom, and she wasnt allowed to collect it until the end of the day.
Now, having been to catering college, and studied food science, it seems to me that having cooked rice sitting out the whole day is really stupid, not to mention dangerous, and is not a good thing to be teaching anybody?
And owing to the fact that DD was unable to acess the chilli at lunchtime, when it would have probably have been safe to eat, it has now gone in the bin, therefore wasting the £7+ that the ingredients cost me!
Factoring in the other lessons, where I have paid for ingredients, and then on the day the teacher has been absent, causing the meat and dairy ingredients that she needed to end up in the bin, I have half a mind to contact the school, and tell them that DD wont be participating in future!

[uberalice]

YANBU

[LastMangoInParis]

Um... if the rice was freshly cooked and drained, what's the problem?
As long as it wasn't open to the air in humid room to be coughed all over

[sooperdooper]

That's just stupid!

Home economics should include food safety, and if they'd made the chilli seperately, and kept it in a fridge it would've been fine, how ridiculous

[lisaro]

I agree, OP, rice is one of the dodgiest foodstuffs to leave out. It amazes me more people don't know that. I'd be ringing school. Firstly, the waste, and secondly the very bad practice-does the teacher have any qualifications in her subject? If so why is she not teaching good food storage?

[SaggyOldClothCatPuss]

Erm, well other that it was put in the container hot, and then spent the entire day slowly cooling down, spending hours at a temperature ideal for multiplication of bacteria, and rice is a common source of a very unpleasant strain of food poisoning bacteria, then not much of a problem....

[WeAreSix]

Isn't rice one of the worst foods to cause food poisoning if it isn't cooled / stored quickly?

I'm sure I remember being told that if you've had a dodgy curry it's just as likely to be the rice as the meat that causes the toxin.

[ScarletLady02]

I'm someone who didn't know about rice...why is it so bad to be left out? I'm curious. Meat's never an issue for me, but I didn't realise rice was such a problem.

[WeAreSix]

Sorry x-posts!

[Inneedofbrandy]

I would of chucked it to. Rice is one of the worst foods to cause food poisoning, and a really nasty strain to, not just a dodgy tummy.

[LFCisTarkaDahl]

It would have been fine, the problem is re heating.

If cooked, left in a container and reheated ONCE then it's fine.

[ScarletLady02]

You learn something new every day. As a vegetarian I thought I was relatively safe. I do practise good hygiene any way, but genuinely didn't know that about rice!

[SaggyOldClothCatPuss]

The first week that I bought the ingredients, and then the teacher was absent, I spent £23. It was curry. There were 17 different ingredients. The chicken went in the bin, because it was august, and it had been in her school bag all day! I was not amused!

[Imnotaslimjim]

Rice at room temp can develop Listeria, and the food tech teacher should know that. I'd be putting a complaint to the school - there isn't many families that can sustain that kind of loss to their food budget :(

[LastMangoInParis]

So a problem with humidity and any hot/warm food picking up airborne germs then?
Because when rice is too old to eat it smells terrible.
Stale rice can be a killer (literally), but when it's too old too eat you can tell very quickly with a quick sniff. Seven hours wouldn't do it unless there was something really wrong with the rice to start with.

[Tailtwister]

YANBU OP. I never touch anything containing cold rice at buffets.

[LastMangoInParis]

So the dish should have been eated straight away then?
Otherwise, what's the alternative but to chuck it?

[SaggyOldClothCatPuss]

Not when I did food science. LFC! It needs to be in the fridge ASAP, or kept at above 70 degrees.

[Inneedofbrandy]

Its 2 hour limit for cooked rice left out at room temp. Current food hygine cert

[moonstorm]

Rice has bacteria in that can't be killed by heating. You have to cool t quickly to it can't multiply. If you reheat it, it's best to do it soon.

[SaggyOldClothCatPuss]

LMIP, it needed to be cooled quickly, then stored in the fridge. The rice could have been run under the cold tap and refridgerated immediately. The meat part should be in the fridge asap, but is far less dangerous than the rice.

[babybythesea]

We certainly couldn't finance that.
The rule in our school was that you had to take your food in, first thing, and put them in the fridge. Everything had to be clearly marked with your name.
I never had anything go missing from the school fridge (actually there were several) and neither did anyone else as far as I know.
You then had to put it back in the fridge, in clearly marked containers, and go back and collect it at the end of the day.
It never caused us a major trauma - your dd's school should be doing the same thing.

[balia]

£23? what on earth did you have to buy?

[LFCisTarkaDahl]

I'd be more worried that the food in a food tech class never has enough time to cook all the way through to the required temperature.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

It would have been fine, the problem is re heating.

If cooked, left in a container and reheated ONCE then it's fine

Sorry, but that's bollocks. You need to cool the rice quickly, so that bacteria have minimum chance to multiply

. The main risk with cooked rice is from the food poisoning bacteria called Bacillus cereus. The bacteria forms a hard outer coating called a spore. This spore protects the bacteria from heat during cooking. If the rice is then cooled slowly the spore will germinate producing more bacteria. These bacteria produce poisons or toxins. Re-heating the rice will destroy some of the bacteria but they will leave behind their toxins which are not damaged by heat. These toxins cause illness.