What foods can be eaten overnight? It turns out that I have been deceived for so many years

In our daily life, many foods are not eaten all at once. In order to avoid waste, many of them are stored in the refrigerator and saved for consumption the next day.

Since when, leftover rice, leftover vegetables, leftover water, leftover tea, leftover white fungus, leftover meat, leftover melon, etc. have been accused of "excessive nitrite, carcinogenicity" and other toxic crimes. Which leftover vegetables can be eaten safely and which ones should be disposed of in time? Today, let's take a look!

01 Leftover Food

There are two reasons why leftovers from the previous night cannot be eaten:

1. It will breed bacteria and cause gastroenteritis, which is what we call poisoning

2. It will produce nitrite, which can cause cancer if consumed for a long time

In fact, the truth is not like this. Because food is rich in nutrients, overnight usually means a longer storage time, generally around 8 to 12 hours.

In 2019, technical personnel from Ningbo Food Inspection Institute used 32 kinds of raw materials to cook 30 kinds of home-cooked dishes. They tested the nitrite content and total colony count in overnight dishes under different storage conditions. Finally, they told us the secrets of overnight dishes through 450 authoritative test data.

They stored the sample vegetables at 4°C and 25°C respectively, and finally came to the following conclusions:

It is recommended that "overnight dishes" should be stored at low temperatures. Experimental results show that cold dishes have a higher total number of colonies because they have not been heat-processed, making them more likely to cause microbial proliferation than other dishes that are cooked thoroughly. In a 4°C environment, the microbial proliferation of dishes stored in the refrigerator is low; in a 25°C environment, the microbial proliferation of dishes placed outside increases significantly after 6 hours.

Overnight food stored in the refrigerator does not pose a cancer risk; meat products stored at room temperature do not pose a major problem, but vegetables do pose a risk of excessive nitrite levels.

Therefore, if you want to eat overnight food, please remember to “keep it in the refrigerator”.

Leafy vegetable salads should be prepared and eaten immediately. In contrast, the nitrite content of leafy vegetables stored overnight at room temperature increases rapidly after being left for 12 hours. Therefore, it is recommended that leafy vegetables be prepared and eaten immediately and should not be stored at room temperature.

Try to store them separately at low temperatures. If there are a lot of leftovers, they should be packaged in advance. This can also avoid the growth of bacteria and extend the shelf life.

Heat thoroughly before eating. For overnight meals that can be eaten, they must be heated thoroughly before eating. This can kill bacteria and make them safer to eat.

02 Overnight Tea

Overnight tea is still drinkable. A cup of pure boiled water has a higher nitrite content than tea after 24 hours. The reason is that tea contains antioxidants such as tea polyphenols, which can reduce the formation of nitrite, so don't worry. Whether it is left for 12 hours or 24 hours, the nitrite content is not exceeded. Drinking tea on an empty stomach in the morning will irritate people with weak gastrointestinal function, so it is recommended to add some hot water to mix it.

Image source: Pixabay

However, experts remind that if there is no microbial contamination, overnight tea can be drunk from a safety perspective. However, from the perspective of nutritional tea tasting, drinking overnight tea is not recommended.

03 Overnight Water

In fact, boiled water that has been set aside overnight contains very little nitrite, which means it will not cause cancer or toxicity to the body. If you store it properly, it is drinkable. If the storage environment is not good, the environmental pollution is serious, or there is a lot of dust in the air, and there is no lid, some dust may dissolve in the water and breed some bacteria, so it is best to boil the water on the same day and drink it on the same day.

Source: Chongqing Tianji Network Co., Ltd.

This article is compiled from: CCTV.com, Science Popularization China, 39 Health Network, Ningbo Food Inspection Institute

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