-Eldica Stuart-
Cousins!
To the unfamiliar, leftovers are food that remains saved for later. Which are popularly used amongst households across the world. However circulating news that someone tragically died after eating leftover pasta has countless raised eyebrows!
A 20-year-old college student who passed away after eating 5-day old pasta back in 2008 case was revealed and written about in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology a few years ago but due to its popularity, has resurfaced again making headlines online.
The Breakfast Club reports that the unidentified student would prepare meals on Sundays to save some time. One week he boiled pasta and put it in storage tupperware containers so that he could add sauce to it when he was ready to consume the meals.
This one day day in particular, he decided to reheat the pasta in the container after 5 days of it sitting out room temperature on the counter. He noted a weird taste to it and disregarded it thinking the taste was strange due to using a new flavor of sauce.
Later the college student began to feel ill. Sickness came to his body, he had abdominal pain, nausea, and headache. The illness continued to develop, he began to have diarrhea and vomiting. The next day, he was unable to move from the bed for class. His parents came to check on their child, unfortunately he was not alive.
After his body was examined, they concluded the time he died. He apparently died 10 hours after eating the pasta. The autopsy revealed that he died of liver necrosis and his liver eventually shut down.
The pasta and sauce were used for testing where examiners discovered a bacteria called Bacillus cereus. Most cases of this bacteria cause vomiting and diarrhea, but in his case, it affected his liver and he succumbed to this foodborne illness. The known name for this food poisoning is “Fried Rice Poisoning” because it is commonly found in fried rice that is left at room temperature after a few hours.