Rice is a staple food for almost half of the world’s population. Although its nutritional content is not particularly high, its high consumption makes it a nutritionally significant food, providing essential nutrients such as protein, lipids, glucosides, vitamins, and minerals.
Rice is typically boiled with water to make porridge or steamed to make rice, the main staple food for many, including the Vietnamese, who typically eat it with side dishes or soup.
You may have experienced making more rice than your family can actually consume. It can be a waste to throw it away, so some people choose to keep it overnight and eat it the next day (commonly known as leftover rice). But is eating leftover rice harmful to our health?
Older family members often feel wasteful discarding leftover rice, so they usually keep it for the next day. However, it’s important to note that if you plan to eat rice from the previous day, it must be stored properly, or it can easily cause food poisoning, diarrhea, and other health issues. Rice contains spores of the bacterium Bacillus cereus, which can cause food poisoning. When cooked rice is not properly stored for an extended period, it provides an environment for these spores to develop into bacteria, producing toxins that can lead to vomiting or dysentery. Generally, leftover food should not be kept for more than 8-10 hours, and the same applies to leftover rice.
In reality, if you leave leftover rice during the summer, the high environmental temperature will accelerate bacterial growth, causing the rice to spoil quickly, making it inedible. Conversely, in winter, when the environmental temperature is relatively low, can we store leftover rice outside?
To properly store leftover rice, you can follow these two methods:
1. **Soak the rice cooker in water**: Prepare a clean basin, put the leftover rice back into the rice cooker, and soak it in the basin of water. The water level should reach about 2/3 of the rice cooker’s height, and then cover it. Covering the rice cooker prevents insects like flies, mosquitoes, and cockroaches from getting into the rice, while soaking it in cold water helps reduce and maintain a stable low temperature to prevent the rice from spoiling.
2. **Cover tightly with a fresh-keeping film and store in the refrigerator**: After the rice has cooled down, cover it tightly with plastic wrap and store it in the refrigerator. In spring and summer, the hot and humid weather can cause leftover food to spoil quickly. At this time, you can put the leftover rice into a fresh-keeping bag and store it in the freezer. It is best to consume leftover rice within 6 hours, and when eating, it is recommended to reheat it in a microwave oven or steam it to make it palatable.
If you store leftover rice using the above methods, it may not spoil, but the nutritional content will be somewhat reduced. The starch in the rice will undergo changes overnight, and when reheated, the taste will not be as good as freshly cooked rice. Therefore, it is better to use leftover rice to make rice balls, porridge, or fried rice with eggs.
According to An Nhien – Vietnamnet
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