What's the deal with rice? I come from a culture we eat a lot of rice. You can keep rice in the fridge for nearly a week. The only time I throw away rice is if it has visible fungus on it.
The problem is with cooked rice that hasn't been cooled off properly (or not kept hot enough). The heat-resistant spores of the Bacillus Cereus will then develop and the bacteria will proliferate and produce a heat-resistant toxin, which can hurt you even after reheating the leftover rice.
You need to keep your rice cold (<7 °C) or hot (>63 °C) enough for the spores not to develop. Letting your rice cool off naturally in a pot is also leaving it at the wrong temperatures for a longer time than if you rapidly cool it off.
Me neither until very recently, when a student died from it. Then it was all over the news for a week. (I'm pretty sure that is in the level of being struck by lightning.) It has even a name: fried rice syndrome.
