The hidden dangers of eating leftover pasta

In a case that has been highlighted, a student with poor knowledge of food and health ended up dying in his sleep after eating 5-day-old pasta. The 20-year-old student used to prepare his meals for the week on a Sunday in an attempt to save time and money. He would boil pasta and then put it into Tupperware containers to be eaten during the week after adding a sauce and reheating it.

Chronology of the accident

The student from Belgium reheated spaghetti that had been prepared five days prior and left in the kitchen at room temperature, according to a case study in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. He attributed the odd taste to the new tomato sauce he put on his spaghetti, ate it all and headed out to play sports.

Within 30 minutes of eating the pasta, he was experiencing intense abdominal pain, nausea, and a headache. After returning home, he immediately had intense episodes of watery diarrhea and vomited profusely, but did not seek medical attention and instead chose to stay in his house, drink water and try to sleep it off. The next morning his parents were worried when he didn't get out of bed for college. When they went in to check on him at 11am, he was already dead.

Credit: Abhishek Hajare/Unsplash

Credit: Abhishek Hajare/Unsplash

Examination of his body revealed he had died at 4 AM, roughly 10 hours after he ate the spaghetti. His body was autopsied whilst samples of his pasta and pasta sauce were sent off to the National Reference Laboratory for Food-borne Outbreaks (NRLFO) for analysis.

Invisible danger

The autopsy revealed liver necrosis, indicating his liver had shut down, as well as possible signs of acute pancreatitis. Fecal swabs revealed the presence of Bacillus cereus, a bacteria responsible for "fried rice syndrome", food poisoning commonly caused by leaving fried rice dishes sitting at room temperature for several hours. The sample of his meal sent to the NRLFO contained significant amounts of Bacillus cereus, confirming the pasta meal was the cause of his illness, leading to his eventual death just hours later.

Credit: Jean-claude Attipoe/Unsplash

Credit: Jean-claude Attipoe/Unsplash

Bacillus cereus poisoning is surprisingly common. In 2003 a family became extremely ill with Bacillus cereus-associated food poisoning after eating 8-day-old pasta salad during a picnic. All five children required medical intervention and needed intensive care, whilst the youngest girl, who was 7 years old, died after her liver failed.

Stealth killer

Bacillus cereus are multiple bacterial strains, most of which are either harmless or even beneficial, as they have been used in various probiotics. But the one strain that's dangerous to us is a real survivor. Unfazed by alcohol and surviving temperatures of 100 degrees Celsius, this bug is difficult to smash. Worse still, it multiplies faster than rabbits at room temperature, as it can double its population in as little as 30 minutes.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The best thing to do with pasta if you're not gonna eat it immediately is to properly refrigerate it, below 10 degrees celsius or keep it hot, above 50 degrees celsius. This is the temperature range in which Bacillus cereus germinates and can potentially become dangerous. Now granted, only between 2 and 5 percent of all food-borne illnesses are caused by it, but those are the really dangerous and potentially deadly ones.

Please, be mindful with the leftover pasta.