Reheating rice may give you food poisoning, Nutritionist explains.

Cooked rice.

Very many people have a habit of storing unconsumed cooked rice into the fridge and heat it up later in the week.

Now, a British expert is warning that it should never be heated more than once and should be refrigerated within an hour, discouraging people from keeping cooked rice in the fridge for no longer than 24 hours before consuming it.

Fiona Hunter, a registered nutritionist for Healthspan, suggests that before one reheats the cooked rice, they need to be careful to make sure it is stored properly before they reheat it. 

“Uncooked rice can contain spores of a bacteria called Bacillus cereus which can survive when rice is cooked and cause food poisoning. If rice is left standing at room temperature after it's been cooked, the spores can grow into bacteria, which will multiply. The longer cooked rice is left at room temperature, the more likely it is that the bacteria multiply,” she explains.

Ms. Hunter adds that this process produces toxins that can cause bouts of vomiting or diarrhoea.

“So it's vital that you get cooked rice into the fridge as soon as possible, within an hour, if you are planning to reheat it later. If you have a large quantity of rice left over it helps to divide it up into smaller portions so that it will cool quicker,” she says.  

It comes after a food contamination expert warned last February that potentially thousands of adults may be cooking rice wrong.

Professor Andy Meharg, from Queens University Belfast, tested chemical levels after cooking rice three different ways.

He found cooking the grains in excess water helps to flush out arsenic, preventing any possible chemical poisoning.

While soaking rice overnight slashes levels of the industrial toxin - linked to heart disease and cancer - by around 80%.