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!

Mango - you are really annoying me with your insistence that rice is ok unless you can smell that it has gone off. Are you saying that everyone else on the thread is wrong?

Mintyy no I'm not, and if I was one to get disproportionately wound up by strangers' remarks on MN then I'd be quite annoyed by your misinterpretation of my posts.

DD is allowed to eat hers for lunch or put it in the fridge. I was a bit miffed about the 1 teaspoon of curry paste needed last week. Why couldn't everyone contribute to a 'communal' jar.

foodtech aah, I see. No such thing where we are, we just have a head of department who is responsible for all of D and T. I don't think he'd be interested, and he certainly wouldn't be given time to do it.

And don't even get me going about the debacle of when I shopped and Tesco dropped, there's no way of paying for it unless I use my own card and dh goes mad!

That is rubbish if you have no way of paying for it. I did work in one school which was a faculty and unfortunately the PE teacher in charge did not do the shopping, it was difficult. I do think we are more old school home ec up here.

Right, I'll be on the next train up!!!

Please do. We are desperate for teachers.

I'd have eaten it. Don't be a food wimp!

Libelulle having grown up in Asia myself I would have to agree with your Japanese friend, extra rice is generally made for the next day and sits at room temp overnight (which is sometimes 35c+). I had never heard of the dangers of rice toxins till I came to the UK - not saying everyone's wrong here, but just how millions of Chinese people leave their cooked rice sitting out for hours and then make breakfast with it the next morning, or even fried rice with it the following evening. And in the States, land of hand sanitizer and antibacterial everything, rice salad is a standard potluck dish which will happily sit for hours at room temp.

Xiaoxiong - I feel vindicated - at last!

I am not a food wimp! Im more than happy to use common sense, and the knowledge I ganied at college, to decide what is safe or not! I like to live on the edge, I often use out of date yoghurt and I never refridgerate jam or ketchup!

This has been an interesting thread. I never realised rice could be so dangerous, will be more cautious in future.

Reading this thread though has made me value DD's school a bit more. I pay £20 A SCHOOL YEAR , and that covers not only all ingredients needed, but also all containers - foil or plastic. Also in Scotland, the GA or the school technician order food in bulk and measure out for each lesson.

Food is stored in the HE department's fridges and is picked up at the end of the day by the pupils.

Had some dodgy looking stuff home, but some surprisingly tasty offerings too.

I've had food poisoning due to eating rice-based meal from a pub buffet....the worst bit was crapping and puking at the same time.

Ever since, I've been very careful about only eating freshly cooked rice.

Another one who has had food poisoning from rice (on a romantic break with a then DP...) It was awful. And some 15 years later, I still remember it as the worst illness I've ever had. The rice I ate looked and smelt fine....

oh and LastMango not anything to do with " Health & 'safety, " Really not.

I know that storing cooked rice without chilling properly is one of the great food hygiene no nos.

I have also lived in countries where naturally cooled rice eaten over several days is the staple diet.

The theory and the practice are difficult for me to reconcile.

We all got dodgy tummies a couple of weeks ago after I left a rice pudding out for too long before reheating it. I knew the rice rules but stupidly, it hadn't occurred to me that it would apply to rice pudding

Sara that is my feeling too. How does the whole of the far east not succumb to mass food poisoning? Any of the microbiologists upthread have any theories? Genuine question btw - like Sara says, the theory and practice here don't quite match up.

How do you know that the whole of the far east isnt riddled with cases of food poisoning which go unrecorded and unreported?

Yanbu of course.

I managed to give ds1 poisoning from a packet of sushi we'd bought on the way out somewhere, in a shop (from a fridge)

on the way home, about 3 hours later, on a hot day, he had the last piece and the next day spent a few hours throwing up

Poor lad, it was horrid. No one else was ill, I'm sure it was the rice.

I am thinking the same as libelulle. We are Asian and eat rice everyday. Nobody does rapid cooling (whatever that is) and chucking it in the fridge, rice is just cooked and left out until it's time to eat and I've never known anyone to suffer as a result of it. At my grandparents family home in my home (very hot) country a massive pot of rice was cooked for about 50 people everyday and the eating was spread over hours, with the servants eating last. Nothing happened. I use a £300 Zojirushi rice cooker that keeps rice warm upto 18 hours (though I only use it for up to 5 hours usually), surely the Japanese would know their rice?

I'm not saying the guidelines are wrong by the way, just wondering why I've not seen the ill-effects that should be.

I really had no idea people worried so much about rice in the UK.

If people insist that rice is really dangerous, then of course I accept that. (Don't quite see how that is 'nothing to with H&S' though, AmIthatBad )

But certainly elsewhere, rice is treated with much less caution. And no, people aren't constantly suffering food poisoning.

For some people it's hard to believe that anyone could consume pork without endangering their lives. I guess others have the same attitude to rice unless it's treated it a very specific way.

(Oh, but however you treat your rice, do always approach rice puddings with extreme wariness. You know nutmeg is dangerous too, right?)

you wise ladies, I have a question regarding rice pudding.
dc likes to take a pot for his packed lunch. the school doesn't have fridges (and atm we don't have a freezer to put in an ice pack).
are the shop bought rice puddings fine to put in? how about home made rice pudding?

I've been trying to think of how to respond to this Libelulle.
It's so anecdotal - apparently the whole of China and Japan do this for hours every night and never ever suffer ill effects? Um ok. Even just a quick google shows numerous forum posts from people living or staying in these areas and being ill (and being not quite sure why).

So we should disregard food science just because that's the way it's done in other places? Maybe we should get rid of our drainage systems too?

You can keep it hot Blisterpack, above 63 degrees is fine. Hopefully that's what rice cookers are achieving if left on.
It's basic food hygiene, either keep hot until serving or cool right down straight away, then reheat ONCE.

Mousy Mouse, do you mean the Ambrosia type pots that are on the ambient supermarket shelves, or ones from the chilled cabinet?