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!

I have a feeling it's always been like this. Have a vivid memory of pink blancmange spilling all over my locker. But yes, I'd agree, I wouldn't want to eat it after it'd been hanging around all day in a warm school.

"Botulinum toxin is produced by an obligate anaerobe (cannot grow in the presence of oxygen)"

Just to add another problem to the mix, isn't this the one that can cause nasty stomach upsets if you make garlic oil without heating it first to kill the toxins?

Here scroll about halfway down.

I did Home Ec in the early 80s and the family always ate what I'd made for dinner or pudding that night. I remember being shocked when a classmate said that her mum always threw what she'd cooked in Home Ec straight in the bin because she thought the recipes were revolting. We couldn't have afforded to do that so even if I'd messed the recipe up we still ate it.

We didn't have fridges at school but it was always the last lesson of the day so we would have to carry it straight home while it was still hot. It was painful trying to carry a pie hot from the oven in a flimsy biscuit tin.

YWNBU to complain to the school. What's the point of teaching them how to cook rice if they're not going to teach the relevant hygiene practice? I hope you get a sensible response to your email.

I would also have thought that a Home 'Economics' teacher should have suggested that all the pupils pay a few pence each and share the jars of spices for the curry dish, rather than expecting every household to buy a load of stuff for the sake of using a teaspoonful and consigning to the back of the cupboard.

It escaped into my bag over all my schoolbooks and I got in trouble with nearly all my teachers in one go.

i always found home ec traumatic
our teacher was called Miss Flay. She terrified me to the very core.

YANBU and I hope your email gets a decent response

I wish I'd known/thought about it being discriminatory, Edgar now you say it of course it is. DD genuinely cannot eat those foodstuffs, and I could have easily got a Drs note to confirm that. DD's teacher was an absolute witch, they were all terrified of her and I used to regularly have her friends round the day before so they could practise what they were cooking. It was that bad. :(

Thank you purity

It's a shame for your DC that what she'd cooked had to be thrown away. School is out of order on that score too. Absolutely agree with folks above - had food poisoning from rice at a wedding buffet once, avoid cold rice dishes when I'm out now like the plague (that's how it felt...)

I endured a dreadful bout of food poisoning after eating at a Chinese buffet. It wasn't just the upset stomach but the fluey feeling that went with it. I'm sure it was because I ate the rice and the others didn't (and they weren't ill)

I liked the email op - hope you get a good response from school.

Depending on their response, I'd be very tempted to send your letter into the local environmental health officer and see if they will re- educate the teacher and provide a proper session on food safety for the pupils!

AmIThatBad thanks for direction to HASAW. Won't read it right now but see my mistake.
Not sure why you're on about DM 'journalists' (if that was directed at me), but hey ho.

The HASAW isn't the most appropriate legislation in this case, it's the Food Hygiene Regs

LastMango, I apologise for being sharp .

I feel I have to constantly defend Health & Safety, which seems to be used as a catch all for anything and everything

Sorry

I suspect that the school will respond that the teacher always tells the pupils to put their food in the fridge at the end of the lesson.

Theyll have a job! DD says that there is only one small domestic fridge in the kitchen!

Ah, please let us (me) know what their response is. (nosey emote)

It will be interesting to see what they come back with.

www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning.aspx?CategoryID=51&SubCategoryID=215

I would have chucked it and complained too.

The food should have been in the fridge. It's a good basic practice to teach.

I'd have eaten it anyway - I frequently leave cooked mince on the side for several hours (not even always in a sealed container and it has yet to be a problem for me. Also I think the risk, given that the statistical frequency of botulinum poisoning from rice, would be pretty low. So I think yab a bit u to bin it. But then I have an iron stomach

Yanbu though to think the school should include food hygiene as part of the overall process of home ec.

I had re-heated chilli and rice last night...I have never been so nervous eating my own food!!

"given that the statistical frequency of botulinum poisoning from rice, would be pretty low."

It might well be, but it is pretty nasty and not a risk I am prepared to take or inflict on other people (having suffered it myself and as a result not having an iron stomach any more)