Wife ate at Beet today and then...

i hope she feels better as well, however most food poisoning symptoms appear 12+ hours after ingestion of a contaminated product. Indigestion is one thing but actual food poisoning has to be pretty severe to manifest within just a few hours of eating.


I only know this from working in restaurants for many years- if someone claimed food poisoning shortly after eating with us we would require a stool sample to verify what type of issue it was (e. coli, salmonella, etc.) and to try to track down if it was in fact our food and, if so, if what they ate was cooked or raw (the salad has a much much larger chance of having made her sick than anything cooked...however more likely than even that is an illness from something non-food related such as touching her mouth/eyes after touching a contaminated subway pole...)

Carmen speaks the truth. Most stuff takes a while to make you sick and the incubation time for various food-bornes varies a lot (it can be many days) making it really hard to actually figure out the bad food. She should consider what/where she ate about 12-30 hours previous to getting sick.

Sucks to be sick, though.

I love Beet. My wife won' eat there with me because she says it makes her feel sick to her stomach every time (not food poisoning sick, just yucky).

I think their food is great. But the music is so bad I am almost embarrassed to eat there. You have to look long and hard for music that bad.

Carmen wrote: i hope she feels better as well, however most food poisoning symptoms appear 12+ hours after ingestion of a contaminated product. Indigestion is one thing but actual food poisoning has to be pretty severe to manifest within just a few hours of eating.


I only know this from working in restaurants for many years- if someone claimed food poisoning shortly after eating with us we would require a stool sample to verify what type of issue it was (e. coli, salmonella, etc.) and to try to track down if it was in fact our food and, if so, if what they ate was cooked or raw (the salad has a much much larger chance of having made her sick than anything cooked...however more likely than even that is an illness from something non-food related such as touching her mouth/eyes after touching a contaminated subway pole...)

It is true that many types of food-bourne illness, such as Salmonella, Shigella, Campylobacter and some E. Coli species tend to cause illness in a delayed fashion, typically 12-24 hours after ingestion. However, S. aureus makes a pre-formed toxin that can cause illness within 2-4 hours of ingestion (typically vomiting more than diarrhea). Classic foods that carry this type of poisoning are things with mayonnaise that are unrefrigerated, so probably not something that one would get at a Thai restaurant. However, another type of food-bourne illness that can cause early GI distress is Bacillus cereus, which can cause symptoms as soon as an hour after eating, and is classically transmitted in fried rice. When B cereus causes early symptoms,it is typically cramps and vomiting, but sometimes it can cause delayed symptoms like the other illnesses mentioned above, which is more characteristically diarrhea. I'm wondering whether the OP's wife ordered fried rice.

But Carmen's point that it could also be a run-of-the-mill stomach virus is also true. These illnesses are very common, and most Americans have always recently eaten something, so it's easy to associate symptoms with the last thing one ate, even if there's no causality.

Toadette wrote: Just curious - what is special about fried rice that makes it such a hospitable home for the b. cereus?

And to the OP - hope wife gets better soon. I know being the caretaker for someone with food poisoning also isn't fun so best of luck to you, too.

Here's an explanation from MMWR (years ago):

Fried rice is a leading cause of 1B. cereus emetic-type food poisoning in the United States (1,4). B. cereus is frequently present in uncooked rice, and heat-resistant spores may survive cooking. If cooked rice is subsequently held at room temperature, vegetative forms multiply, and heat-stable toxin is produced that can survive brief heating, such as stir frying (4). In the outbreak described in this report, vegetative forms of the organism probably multiplied at the restaurant and the day care centers while the rice was held at room temperature.

Toadette wrote: Yikes. And rice was always my go-to comfort food for moments of stomach distress. Now I know it may be the cause!

FWIW, I eat fried rice all the time.

Oh b cereus.

Woodsy1069 wrote: Thanks all. It has calmed down. It was vicious for about six hours.

Glad to read that wife is better. 6 hours of that kind of vicious is a long time but could have been worse.

Whether or not the food at the restaurant was at fault or not I am sure you people won't be eating there any time soon.