Dear sharma,

Reheating foods can reduce nutritional quality of foods and the other hands, between heating and further cooling them microorganism have opportunity for growing in foods and leading to the food poisoning.

Are there any scientific evidence for this?

According to food chemistry book, some of vitamins, especially vitamin C is very sensible to heat, this vitamin degradation susceptible to small temperature Increasing.

According to the food microbiology books, some of bacteria for example Staphylococcus aureus , grow in (35-37) centigrade degree and produce poison in (10-46) centigrade degree. This poison is relatively Thermostable and don’t destroy in pasteurization temperature and can food poison.

Or Bacillus Cereus is another bacteria has risk for cooked food which is Maintenance warm for a long time (for example cooked or fry Rice). This bacterium can cause Food Poisoning.

Shod be noted, food holding in Inadequate environment (for ex holding food in dishes which has high deep ) is another risk factor, because the high temperature center of food can produce condition which is bacteria can reproduction and leading to food poisoning.

Reheated foods have both merits and demerits. In terms of nutrition and other quality attributes , reheating causes deterioration. Most of the causes this reheating influence

by the amount of water content in the food. For some food materials reheating prevent the growth and reproduction of microorganism at certain amount of moisture content above particular temperature. In response of your question , it seems to me too general . Better feedback can be provided if it would be more specific.

Thank you for your question.

Omar,

Thanks for the response. Ok I'll be more specific. What are the effects of

-Reheating cooked rice at night

-reheating curries (with more 80% water content) with cooked veges.

Do the nurtients' composition change as we reheat the second time? If it does what are its effects?

Hi Indumati,

Now your question looks hard for me to get exact answer.

Reheating of cooked (chilled or frozen ) rice or curry is got high chance of bacterial growth and reproduction . Reheating of chilled and and frozen curry and rice should be once and above the temperature of 63 degree Celsius.

Regarding nutrition retention, water soluble and heat sensitive (such as vitamin C) nutrition deteriorate during reheating .

The following link will give you more information about this issue.

Please expect someone's more specific answer .

Thank you

http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/complete_safefood.pdf

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~acrobat/hret3.pdf

Please disregard this sentence" Reheating of chilled and and frozen curry and rice should be once and above the temperature of 63 degree Celsius."

it supposed to be "Reheating should be once in case of chilled or frozen cooked food at temperature higher than 63 degree Celsius "

Sorry for any inconvenience

Omar,

Thanks for the reply. Appreciate it.

But over a period of time does eating such reheated foods effect the physiological balance in the body? Will it lead to digestion disorders?

And Omar, I wasn't able to access the above links. Kindly verify it for me.

Thanks.

Dear Indumati,

I really found your conversation interesting.

Reheating induces gelatinization in rice, the extent of gelatinization depends of the cooking method (microwave, steam, etc) and the water content of the product.

Though gelatinization dramatically increases the availability of starch for digestion by amylolytic enzymes, but if you are going for commercial purpose, every time the texture of product will change, subject to inconsistency and lack of consumer liking.

And replying to your last comment, repeated heating of foods, induces oxidation of many food constituents which lead to release of free radicals and compounds that could be carcinogenic.

Aman Paul,

Thanks for the response. Beyond any reasonable doubt I'm convinced that reheated foods are, if not healthy, they are definitely harmful.

But I need to convince people around me through proper scientific findings. DO you know of any scientific literature that supports your statements.

I'd appreciate it if you could send me the link.

Thanks.

Dear Indumati,

Follow the link, these may help you in concluding:

http://www.omicsonline.org/2157-7110/2157-7110-1-103.pdf

http://mutage.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/6/431.full

http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/processing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylamide

And many more articles are available on internet.

Regards,

Aman

I doubt you will find definitive evidence that reheated foods are harmful in the current body of literature. However, one avenue you could pursue in evaluating your hypothesis is that reheating of foods may increase the load of advanced glycation end products, also known as glycotoxins, which some believe are harmful in increasing oxidative stress. There are several good articles on this. Vlassara, Ames, Uribarri, Ramasamy and others have published in this area.

Kathleen Davis,

Thanks for the reply. Can you please send me the links to these article.