TikTok gym bros will do almost anything in the pursuit of easy gains, but scientists warn the latest trend could prove deadly.
Body-conscious young men are now ditching their protein shakes in favour of a simple, bulky meal of ground mince and rice, nicknamed ‘boy kibble’.
Fans of the cheap and cheerful recipe often try to save time by making huge batches of the protein-rich dish to eat throughout the week.
However, microbiologists say that boy kibble is a ‘recipe for disaster’.
Scientists warn that TikTok-influenced gym goers may be inadvertently putting themselves at risk of serious, and potentially life-threatening, food poisoning.
Dr Primrose Freestone, an expert on food safety from the University of Leicester, told the Daily Mail: ‘Rice is a problematic food for batch meal making.’
That is because cooked rice is the perfect breeding ground for Bacillus bacteria.
If these start to grow in your food, eating an infected bowl of boy kibble can lead to severe nausea and vomiting that can last days.
Scientists have warned that the latest ‘boy kibble’ trend could be putting gym-fanatics at risk of potentially deadly food poisoning
If you turn to social media for your nutritional advice, you’re almost certain to be overwhelmed by a baffling barrage of information on macros, supplements, and meal plans.
In the face of this overwhelming complexity, some young fitness fanatics are simply looking for the simplest, fastest, and easiest means of fuelling up.
In videos racking up thousands of views, young men on TikTok have been sharing their ‘recipes’ for boy kibble and extolling the virtues of this simple meal.
In one viral clip, a fitness enthusiast shared how they cook a vast batch of rice and meat, serving themselves around 450 grams (one lbs) of beef per portion.
‘Unseasoned ground beef and rice. This is what peak performance looks like,’ wrote one enthusiastic commenter.
‘Good stuff, dude. Thanks for sharing,’ chimed in another.
While some recommend cooking this meal up fresh, a large number of clips show influencers prepping rice and meat for multiple days, storing batches in pots or Tupperware.
Besides the obvious lack of fruit and vegetables, there is nothing inherently dangerous about diet, but storing boy kibble for more than a few days is where the risk begins.
Fans of boy kibble praise how simple and high in protein the combination can be, but experts say that the mixture is a breeding ground for bacteria
‘It is not so much preparing batch meal cooking that is the food safety issue, but how the food is prepared and then stored,’ says Dr Freestone.
The biggest danger is a type of bacteria called Bacillus cereus, which can grow on starchy foods like rice.
Cooking the rice at first is hot enough to kill off all of the living Bacillus, but the bacteria’s spores are heat-resistant and can survive this process.
‘If after cooking the rice dish is left to slowly cool by sitting at room temperature for more than 2 hours, the Bacillus spores have time to develop into bacteria, which will increase in numbers quickly as moist cooked rice is a good Bacillus culture medium.’
Once the bacteria have spread throughout the rice and meat, they begin releasing toxins, which lead to severe food poisoning.
This means that even heating the rice up thoroughly won’t remove the source of the sickness, even if it does kill the bacteria.
However, what really makes this bacterium a risk is its ability to keep reproducing even at relatively low temperatures.
Studies have shown that the toxic bacteria can still grow at temperatures down to 4°C (39.2°F).
The rice in boy kibble can grow Bacillus cereus bacteria, even when kept in the fridge. After two or three days, this can produce enough toxins to trigger food poisoning
That means Bacillus can multiply even when the rice is kept in the fridge, making bulky portions of boy kibble a disaster waiting to happen.
The toxins released by Bacillus cereus lead to food poisoning that can be severe and, in some rare cases, fatal.
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) estimates that there are 2.4 million cases of food poisoning in the UK each year.
Of these cases, which could be caused by multiple food-borne pathogens, 16,400 people need hospital treatment, and 180 infections result in death.
The risk posed by Bacillus infection is particularly high for young children, who can receive a fatal dose of toxins from relatively small portions.
In 2014, 23 premature infants across nine hospitals in England died after being infected by contaminated feed.
Similarly, in 2005, a family of five children were hospitalised after eating four-day-old pasta, sadly resulting in one of the children dying due to liver failure.
The risks are significantly lower for healthy adults, but experts warn that the results are likely to be extremely unpleasant.
Poisoning caused by Bacillus cereus (illustrated) causes severe nausea and vomiting within 30 minutes to five hours after eating, lasting up to two days. In severe cases, this poisoning can be fatal
Professor Cath Rees, a food safety expert from the University of Nottingham, told the Daily Mail: ‘It causes severe nausea and vomiting; rapid onset, usually 30 minutes to five hours after eating and generally lasts for 12 to 14 hours.
‘I guess if the focus is on losing weight, Bacillus cereus food poisoning is one way to do it– but it’s not a diet plan I’d recommend.’
‘What you should definitely not do is cook a large amount, store it in one portion which cools slowly, and then reheat the whole thing multiple times,’ says Professor Rees.
Instead, place the food in smaller containers that can cool down quickly and get them into the fridge to chill as soon as possible.
You can store rice and meat in the fridge for one to two days, but any longer than this runs the risk of infection.
Professor Rees says that well-cooked mince by itself can be stored for three to four days in the fridge, so consider making the rice fresh if you want to make meals further in advance.
For longer-term storage, the best thing to do is to place your meals in freezer-safe containers and store them at -18°C (0°F) or colder.
Meals frozen in this way can be kept safely for about two to three months and defrosted when needed.
