Page updated 30 September 2007
Food Poisoning - Bacillus cereus
- Present in air and in soil where vegetables, cereals and rice grow.
- Contamination of warm cooked rice, kept in warm moist conditions, allows the spores to germinate, multiply and produce enterotoxins. Growth on rice encourages toxin production. Rapid reheating of rice (eg "fried rice") is not sufficient to inactivate these toxins.
- Symptoms of two kinds (i) nausea, vomiting within 1-6 hours (like S. aureus), (ii) acute diarrhoea with occasional vomiting within 6-16 hours (like C. perfringens). Never both.
- Prevention Proper storage of cooked rice.
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