Moldy Rice Cake

We had a food scare. I’m still pretty upset.

My parents’ church decided to give everyone over 75 years old a red bean rice cake. I think it’s to celebrate Chinese New Years. Someone delivered it to our house Monday while they were home, and they brought it to the apartment. We had some on Tuesday morning, and some more this morning. Well, my mom just go a call from a church member saying to look carefully at the rice cake before eating, because some of them became moldy. Sure enough, there were white mold spots on the rice cake that my mom did not see. I ate some both days.

One of the huge food warnings post-transplant is to avoid raw, unpasteurized, spoilt, or moldy foods since my immune system is suppressed by anti-rejection medications. Bacteria present on those foods can multiply rapidly and badly damage the new kidney (and other stuff in the body). I think their explanation was that the place they ordered from forgot to put in enough preservatives so it grew mold pretty quickly. Ugh, I hate this Chinese “chaobuduo” culture, which basically translates to “good enough.” But it’s not. This was actually pretty dangerous. Good thing that 1) my mom battered and fried the rice cake before eating, and 2) UCLA already reduced my anti-rejection medication dosage by ~half so I’m not as susceptible to infections.

I can’t imaging losing the new kidney due to some stupid food safety oversight. Needless to say, I’m not eating anything from my parents’ church for a long long time.