Summer is a season to worry about food poisoning. The heat has been getting more intense in recent years, so we need to be extra careful with packed lunches, especially those that may need to be carried outdoors. So this time, we asked Maki Kono, a lifestyle stylist who provides daily information on cooking and general housework, about ingredients and side dishes that should be avoided in summer bento boxes to prevent food poisoning. Soft-boiled eggs Eggs can contain Salmonella, a food poisoning bacteria. Compared to other food poisoning bacteria, it is known that even small amounts of Salmonella can cause food poisoning, so it is said that small children and the elderly need to be especially careful. Salmonella bacteria are killed when heated to 75°C for at least one minute, but may still remain if the food is half-cooked. If you are putting tamagoyaki (rolled omelet), boiled eggs, fried eggs, etc. in your lunch box, make sure to cook them thoroughly until the center is cooked. (Omitted) Lettuce Raw leafy vegetables such as lettuce are often used to separate and add color to bento side dishes. Food poisoning bacteria grow more easily in foods with a lot of moisture. It is important to reduce the amount of water in your lunch box as much as possible, but raw vegetables are high in water content. Not only can the heat and the salt contained in the other side dishes cause the vegetables to lose moisture, which can lead to food poisoning, but they can also become shriveled by the time your lunch is eaten, making them taste and look bad. In summer, it is best to avoid raw vegetables such as lettuce and cucumbers. (omitted) Takikomi gohan (cooked rice)/Mazame gohan (mixed rice) To prevent food poisoning in your bento, it is recommended to use foods that have been cooked and have a strong flavor. For this reason, many people think that cooked and well-seasoned rice dishes such as seasoned rice or mixed rice are okay to put in a bento, but in fact they spoil more easily than plain rice, so care should be taken. In cooked rice or mixed rice, the ingredients contain a lot of moisture, and the salt used in the seasoning causes the ingredients to release moisture easily. In addition, the ingredients themselves can harbor food poisoning bacteria, so the more ingredients you add, the higher the risk. Fried rice, yakisoba, pasta Have you ever heard of the term “fried rice syndrome”? This term became a hot topic on overseas social media, and was coined after a case of someone dying from food poisoning after eating fried rice that had been left out at room temperature. The cause of this was Bacillus cereus. It is one of the bacteria that causes food poisoning in foods made with grains such as rice and noodles, and because it is widely found in nature, it is not easy to prevent it from attaching to food ingredients. The optimum temperature for breeding is 25 to 35 degrees Celsius, and normal summer temperatures are very dangerous. In addition, Bacillus cereus produces a special shell called a spore, which survives even when heated to 100°C. If you have a microwave at work or elsewhere, you might think, “It’ll be fine if I reheat it when I eat it,” but it’s not effective against Bacillus cereus spores…
This term became a hot topic on overseas social media, and was coined after a case of someone dying from food poisoning after eating fried rice that had been left out at room temperature. Foreigners are really stupid.
It is a common bacteria that grows at 25°C and survives even at 100°C, so there is no way to prevent it, so why doesn’t it usually cause food poisoning?
I had heard that fried rice tastes good when mixed with eggs, so I tried it, and although it wasn’t bad, I thought it was something other than fried rice.
>>27>>35 I agree. The golden style of egg on rice that you cook and then stir fry isn’t that tasty. Generally, you put oil in a cast iron pan, heat it, add eggs, stir a little to make them a bit scrambled, and then add the rice, but you can decide how scrambled you want them to be to your liking.
For fried rice, I fried an egg without any added egg and then combined it with white rice. This way you get the savory flavor of the egg white and the richness of the yolk.
The night before, I boil the somen noodles, roll them into bite-sized balls, put them in a lunch box, and freeze them. The next day, I put the noodle soup in a water bottle and take the frozen somen noodles with me. When I get to work, I put them in the fridge. It’s delicious.
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