Ripped parts of the post:

The bacteria is best known for causing a type of food poisoning called “Fried Rice Syndrome,” since rice is sometimes cooked and left to cool at room temperature for a few hours. During that time, the bacteria can contaminate it and grow. B. cereus is especially dangerous because it produces a toxin in rice and other starchy foods that is heat resistant and may not die when the food it infects is cooked.

And

Unfortunately, that was the case for a 20-year-old student, who passed away after eating five-day-old pasta.

His story was described in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology a few years back, but has since resurfaced due to some YouTube videos and Reddit posts. According to article, every Sunday the student would make his meals for the entire week so he wouldn’t need to deal with making it on the weekdays. One Sunday, he cooked up some spaghetti, then put it in Tupperware containers so that days later, he could just add some sauce to it, reheat it and enjoy it.

However, he didn’t store the pasta in the fridge, rather he left it out on the counter. After five days of the food sitting out at room temperature, he heated some up and ate it. While he noticed an odd taste to the food, he figured it was just due to the new tomato sauce he added to it.

  • capital@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Im astounded at the speed that this can kill.

    If I’m reading the article correctly, it was <24 hrs? God damn.

    • i_am_somebody@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 month ago

      Toxins generated by bacteria and some fungi are EXTREMELY poisonous. The unfortunate victim essentially ate a poisonous mushroom in the form of pasta.

      I am shocked to see how many people leave food on the counter to eat later. Refrigerate it immediately! Not one hour, not twenty minutes! As soon as you’re done eating, to the fridge it goes!

      Nothing ever happens to you until it happens, and we’re not talking about stomach pain, but almost instant death.

        • HaveMouseWillTravel@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          I don’t think this applies to modern fridges. They are more than capable of maintaining their desired temperature when hot food is there.

          • ezures@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            I would still be careful, just because the whole fridge doesn’t heat up, the food next to the hot item would still warm up, increasing risk.

        • 9point6@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          The danger zone for food is between about 20 to 45 degrees Celsius. You can let hot food cool for an hour or so, but you’ve gotta get it into the fridge before it spends much time in that zone.

          Obviously the amount of time this is a risk varies wildly by food, and some things are actually salty, acidic or fatty enough to limit a lot of bacterial growth for a surprising amount of time. But it’s just more sensible to not roll the dice on food safely