Studies on the heat resistance ofBacillus cereusspores and growth of the organism in boiled rice

Abstract
SUMMARY: A comparison was made of the heat resistance ofBacillus cereusspores at 95° C. Spores of serotype 1 strains were more resistant than those of the other types tested. However, there was little difference in the growth rate of the various serotypes in boiled rice at 22° C. Most samples of uncooked rice contained multiple serotypes ofB. cereus.These results indicate that the cooking procedure used for the preparation of cooked rice is likely to be selective for certain serotypes, and this is the most likely reason why type 1 is the most common serotype implicated in outbreaks of food poisoning and can be isolated from many routine samples of cooked rice.