Ate mouldy rice 🤮

[Peptalk2025]

I know nobody has a crystal ball but am I likely to get food poisoning?

I ate about 5 forkfuls of rice from a takeaway before seeing that the rice underneath was clearly mouldy.

Will not be going to that takeaway place again. A shame as it's a new, 'nice' restaurant.

Hope you’re still feeling okay, OP.

If this happens again, keep a small sample of the food (Clearly labelled) in the fridge rather than binning it immediately. I work in public health and investigate outbreaks from food premises. It is extremely useful to have a sample of the food. We can look at the genes of the bacteria and trace the source of an entire outbreak. We can then support the premises to improve.

“Are you sure it was mould?” “No”
”Did you take a photo?” “No”
”Can you go and take a photo?” “No, it’s in the bin”
“Why didn’t you take a photo to be sure?” “Because it might not have been mould”

How can literal strangers online reassure you about this concern if you aren’t sure, have no photos/aren’t willing to take photos? I love reading pointless posts like these 😂

Thanks. I'll definitely bear this in mind if it happens again. Science is amazing isn't it and it's amazing that you can analyse the genes to track things back.

The perils of reheated rice have caused me a lot of anxiety in the past. If you're really anxious about it but you love rice, just make it fresh every time - it's not like it's difficult or expensive. And make it yourself when you get a takeaway :)

If you're making fried rice, you can also use those ready cooked pouches. They're really long dated so the germs have all been blasted out of them.

(Fried rice otherwise requires cooled cooked rice)

The rice fear, while real, is a bit exaggerated in that the toxin producing bacteria needs to be present in the raw product for it to be a problem in the first place. Then it needs to be temperature abused (left at ambient too long to allow the toxins to form).

Places that supply mainstream food retailers like Tesco will routinely test product for bacillus cerus so rice from these kinds of places will very likely be safe if you want to reheat last night's home-made curry etc. I routinely freeze cooked rice and reheat because there is negligible opportunity for toxins to form.

Was it blue/green?

If so.. a reaction between rice and garlic can turn it blue/green. It's the reaction between the enzymes and sulfer-containing amino acids.

Yep. Utterly bonkers. Zero comprehension skills and defensive. I'll stick with my original hunch. Batshit or bullshit. Nuts oh hazelnuts