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!

Christ Almighty, I can't believe the ignorance some posters are showing. I'm not involved in food hygiene in any way, shape, or form, but even I know that rice is one of the worst foodstuffs for food poisoning, and that it should be either eaten immediately, or chilled immediately, and stored in a fridge.

Nobody is scaremongering, just trying to teach very, very basic good food practise.

milli it is the toxins the bacteria produce that cause food poisoning from rice. Reheating kills the bacteria, but doesn't remove, or break down, the toxins the bacteria have already produced.

I too would have binned the food. I would also have written a very strong letter regarding the incident.

Milli, spores are not always killed through heating. Heating is not a magical cure all. Pasteurisation is helpful, but not the same as simple heating. It takes twenty minutes for one bacteria to become 2. In four hours, 1 becomes 4000+. There are thousands of bacteria in food quite naturally. Allowed to multiply, this becomes millions, billions...

You don't want to take risks with rice, the only option was to bin it.
The chilli and rice should have been cooled at room temperature and then refrigerated. The school should have adequate refridgeration space to accommodate all the food. I think it is a terrible waste, but a real shame if kids are denied practical cooking ( and food hygiene!) lessons in school. I think your DD should raise the issue in her next home ecomics class.

salad shouldn't be in the same fridge as any meat product either....especially not below it...

i know basic Food safety for commercial purposes. I just don't think applying them to home situations is appropriate given the actually pretty low levels of risk. care to quantify what you consider dangerous?

Sure it's anecdotal about rice cooking in Asia, but it's fairly solid anecdote. I mentioned my Japanese friend, but I actually also lived in the far east myself (Thailand) many moons ago and it was standard there too to keep rice in the rice cooker for long periods. Many people on this thread have talked about similar practices. Of course people weren't ill all the time!

And the 'maybe we should get rid of our drainage systems?' comment above is plain offensive. The world outside Europe is not some gigantic dirty slum where people are incapable of basic hygiene. If reheated rice was regularly causing serious food poisoning in large proportions of a population, whether in the UK or Japan or Thailand or China or wherever, then people would not eat it, it's as simple as that.

Before I get jumped on, I am NOT questioning the reality of rice food poisoning. But I am asking a question about getting the risks in perspective. Not eating the rice salad that's been kept lying in the sun all afternoon - I'm with you all the way. Avoiding all reheated rice on principle? Seems to me to be a massive overreaction.

I keep raw meat in the salad drawer. It's got a second layer of containment round it, and it's the coldest part of the fridge.

EdgarAllan - I agree, most people don't follow the same rules cooking at home as catering establishments are required to follow. I usually leave rice cooling down on the worktop and then refrigerate it later in the evening, though sometimes I forget and leave it out all night. I've yet to suffer food poisoning after several years of doing this, but not saying it won't happen one day ...

Having said that, I do think at school kids should be taught to current health and safety recommendations/legislation and be made aware of issues like food poisoning etc.

yes, that is what i was thinking - standard practice for billions of people is to cook rice once and eat it through the week. not just China, but Taiwan, Japan, South East Asia..India. in terms of relative risk: not that high.

I never knew that about rice either. I cooked rice and curry in the slow cooker 2 weeks ago, it cooked on low for 8 hours. I ate some that night, left it in the slow cooker overnight then me an ds age 4 had some the next day. Froze the rest, got some out 2 days ago and cooked it from frozen as didn't have time to defrost. !!
I should probably be dead!!

ShutTheFrontDoor - I think, as other posters have pointed out, the risk is probably quite low. Worth knowing about though.

DH and I and half dh's department had rice food poisoning after a meal at a Thai restaurant. The half that had noodles were fine so Environmental Health were able to be quite sure it was the rice. We felt absolutely dreadful, like a very bad flu with added sickness and diarrhoea.
And I am one of the cast iron stomach types who often doesn't get sick when people around me do.

The point isn't what we do or don't do at home. At home I use a calculator to add things up, but in school I was taught how to do mental arithmetic. To me, that's the issue here, this dish has been 'taught' in the wrong way and schools should be getting this sort of thing right.

the op didn't just object to the teaching method, she threw the food away!!

that is applying a commercial standard to home cooking.

you can't blame the school for how much you spend on ingredients either. making appropriate substitutions for cost reasons is entirely within a parents remit.

or chilled immediately, and stored in a fridge

Surely rice should be left to cool then chilled?

I use packets of microwave rice anyway so I just heat up what I need. Much more simple.

and anyway, chilli and rice is just wrong it needs to be served on a baked potatoe.

Not at DD2's school it wasn't. She had to have the exact ingredients, or all hell broke loose. Couldn't stand her Home Ec teacher, we had some right old ding dongs because DD2 is wheat and dairy intolerant (she has IBS), and a few other foods like onion, pepper, citrus, and tomato - try cooking without that lot, and she wouldn't allow subs for even that.

No, it needs to be cooled immediately Woozley, it's the cooling down to room temperature/leaving it at room temperature that's the problem. I just bung it in a big sieve, and run cold water over it, then shove it in the fridge.

thats discriminatory - subs for Buddhist (veg or fruitarian), kosher/halal etc have to be allowed.

Ok - I was aware that rice could be hazardous if left out or reheated.

However I have just started buying the READY MADE rice in the re heat puches by Tilda...How is it these are safe?

I keep raw meat in the salad drawer too ... it's labelled appropriately. I don't eat rice when I'm out.

Thanks Purity, that's an incredibly helpful post.

Purity do you know why ready made rice in the re-heat puches from the cupboard sections is ok?

Bacillus Cereus

This pathogen can produce spores which survive normal cooking. As the bacteria form spores they produce a toxin which is not easily destroyed by cooking.

It is found in cereal products, dust and soil, but most commonly in rice and pasta which has not been kept at the correct temperature.