Bacillus cereus food poisoning occurs year round and has a worldwide distribution. The emetic syndrome is most often associated with fried rice that has been cooked and then held at warm temperatures for several hours; and is almost always linked with fried rice served in oriental restaurants.
It is also related to the practice of boiling a large quantity of rice that is contaminated with Bacillus cereus spores and allowing the rice to drain at room temperature before flash frying; the flash frying does not kill the spores or inactivate the heat stable emetic toxin.
The symptoms present within minutes to hours and last up to 24 hours.
The incidence of either form of this disease is seriously under reported as the symptoms in most cases, are relatively mild and of short duration.
Fried rice symptoms
