Trust me I'm a Doctor

Marmight I am cooking and reheating rice and pasta quite deliberately for the reasons given in the links further up the thread. DH has diabetes.

In spite of reassurances I'm still not sure about it especially as I have a sensitive tummy. However I have been for a walk today - for a reason; I have to have a reason - and got half an hours dose of Vitamin D!

I'm looking forward to the next programme.

I cannot see that cooking pasta/rice/potatoes at 9.00am, cooling them and then reheating them at 12.00am for lunch will do anyone any harm.

Lets face it most of us eat heated, cooled and reheated bread every time we have a slice of toast and the gap between heating and cooling bread and then toasting it is often days. Pasta and bread are both primarily made from flour and water. I cannot see the difference.

Many of us also recook cold potatoes in all kinds of ways without thinking twice.

There is a problem with reheating rice, which is why in rice-based cultures it is always stir fried in a very hot wok. That deals with the problem, just as cooking chicken properly deals with any possible salmonella.

If I remember my food safety course correctly, rice has a particular problem. If pre cooked and cooled slowly it develops a toxin that does not get removed by subsequent cooking. This is a problem for chinese/indian restaurants where large amounts of rice are pre cooked to be re-heated later. It is not the re-heating that causes the problem but the slow cooling. If rice is to be re-heated at a later time it must be cooled quickly to prevent the toxin developing. I have not heard of a similar problem with pasta.

This is a toxin not a bug, toxins are not affected by heat in the same way as bugs. (the toxin in kidney beans requires cooking to break it down)

Do we have any food techs that can confirm or rubbish this ?

That is right, pompa .
It is when it is pre-cooked and left in large, warm heaps that causes the problem.

www.salford.gov.uk/d/904004_report.doc

Posted before I finished.
This seems to refute the idea, but certainly a friend was involved in the original investigations in the 1970s where it is was established that pre-cooked rice, kept warm, caused problems with bacteria developing, which cannot be destroyed by reheating.

I ate reheated rice and it had a very bad effect on my stomach.

I think anyone who has IBS or similar should be careful about eating reheated rice.

Fresh rice tonight then, and throw any left into the recycling bin!

I have been ill after going to a Chinese restaurant, so perhaps it was the rice not the other food.

As said on a similar thread, I've re-heated cooked rice for decades and not come to any harm.

I batch cook chilli con carne with rice, tagines with rice, etc., and portion in tupperwares and freeze when cooled.

I was told about it when I had just got married in the 70s, so have always rinsed it in cold water. I cook pasta and rice in bulk and freeze it in portions, so have always rinsed both with cold water so that they cool quickly and can be frozen within half an hour. All this time I have been reducing my blood pressure without realising it!

If rice is to be re-heated at a later time it must be cooled quickly to prevent the toxin developing.

Ah, that might be why it has never been a problem for us - the rice that is left over I've always run cold water over it (more to stop the remaining heat from turning the rice 'soggy') and when it's drained, it's either been put in the fridge or frozen.

Reading about Chinese restaurants, I have a friend (who has MS and Crohn's) and she and her husband will reheat Chinese takeaway food the next day!

My son used to eat all sorts of left over takeaways for breakfast when he was a student and came to no harm! My SIL is Italian and often eats leftover pasta which he reheats by frying in a little olive oil so it does not go all soggy .

Surely, at the end of the day, it is a question of using our knowledge and common sense. I have been cooking and reheating food, including rice for decades. No-one has ever got food poisoning from my cooking.

But I am careful. I do not keep food warm after it has been cooked. I cover it, leave it to cool and then where appropriate reheat it to boiling point. I rarely, if ever, put leftovers in the fridge, they go straight into the freezer. In fact I use my freezer more than my fridge for any food that will be stored for more than a day.

Uncooked rice can contain spores of Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning. When the rice is cooked, the spores can survive.
If the rice is left standing at room temperature, the spores can grow into bacteria. These bacteria will multiply and may produce toxins (poisons) that cause vomiting or diarrhoea.
The longer cooked rice is left at room temperature, the more likely it is that the bacteria or toxins could make the rice unsafe to eat.

Source NHS Choices

Precisely, so we all use our knowledge and common sense to make sure this never happens.

No one can now say 'I didn't know'

An interesting blog post on the programme from Zoe Harcombe here:
www.zoeharcombe.com/2014/10/trust-me-im-a-doctor-not-on-nutrition/

It is interesting, but I would question some of her doubts.

There was nothing in the recooking section that suggested that we should be eating lots of carbohydrates. It was just pointing out that heated cooled and reheated pasta had less sugar in it. This is of interest to anyone with diabetes who has been following a lowish carbohydrate diet but would like now and again to have a reasonable portion of pasta or rice (say 1 - 1 1/2oz dry weight). To know you can reduce the sugar spike you will get from this helpful. Not everybody has a diet high in carbs and sugar.

Yes, I agree the sudden introduction of calories in fat is irrelevant to the issue, but for anyone trying to reduce their weight or keep it stable and wanting to increase their fat consumption needs to rememeber that it is higher in calories, unit for unit, than fruit and veg or carbohydrates, so if you are going to eat more fat, you need to eat considerable less in comparable units of other food items.

Thank you for the link mamie

I don't think that is the premise of the extreme low-carb diet Flickety. I think on that you eat lots of saturated fat, cream etc and you lose a lot of weight because of the way the body reacts. It isn't something I would do because the early stages involve cutting out fruit and quite a lot of vegetables, but I think the science behind "you don't get fat from eating fat" is interesting. I read the blogs of Zoe Harcombe and John Briffa and follow Ben Goldacre on Twitter. They are all good at exposing some of the dodgy science funded by big pharma and the food industry.
I have always thought that artificial fat substitutes are wrong on every level (I know you do too).

She seems to have missed the point entirely when she talks about 'nutrients' being destroyed in the cooking process.

I think her starting point is "why would you bother eating carbs", really. I don't particularly agree with that and durum wheat is actually not bad from a GI point of view (44 I think). We have about 50g each about once every couple of weeks.

In the early 60s, I was talking to a complete stranger in a lunch buffet queue, and he introduce me to the diet devised by Prof John Yudkin, who was fashionable at the time. This was low carb, high protein. He had a system of carbohydrate units which I followed successfully and brought my weight down painlessly to an easily maintained level. I wish I still had his book!

I remember my mother losing weight in the fifties by cutting out bread and potatoes (Ryvita anyone?). Then suddenly fat was the enemy. I think the no carb lobby is a bit extreme, but I can see why they feel the way they do.
The other thing I like about Zoe Harcombe is that her basic message is eat real food. I don't know if anyone else is watching The Kitchen, but there is one family whose diet seems to be almost entirely composed of carbs and processed "food". Makes you weep.
How did the "food industry" get such a grip?