Woman falls violently ill after making terrible slow cooker mistake
Anne Sullivan made a white bean stew in her slow cooker and was sick twice in one day. She had actually given herself food poisoning by not cooking the beans twice
Even vegans aren't immune to food poisoning, as one woman discovered after making a vegan stew in her slow cooker.
Anne Sullivan followed a white bean stew recipe to the letter, including pre-soaking the beans and letting them simmer all day in the slow cooker. However, seven hours later, the beans hadn't changed size. Despite their tough texture, Anne took a bowl to work and ate it, soon feeling faint and dizzy.
She recalled: "I must have looked awful, too, because my boss told me to go home and get some sleep. I felt like throwing up." By the next day, she was feeling better and served the stew again, this time to her boyfriend. Halfway through the meal, he questioned if the beans had made Anne ill.
They stopped eating and were on their way out when the symptoms returned. Despite pre-soaking and long stewing, the beans were undercooked, leading to an increase in a naturally occurring toxin called phytohaemagglutinin, causing symptoms such as diarrhoea, dizziness and nausea.
Anne's error was not boiling the beans for ten minutes. The correct method would have been to soak the beans for five hours, then drain, rinse, and boil them for ten minutes.
Instead, by putting them directly into the slow cooker, she inadvertently increased the toxin levels were increased. "I had no idea - I think most people assume beans will cook in a slow cooker. Most recipes seem to assume you're using canned beans, which are fully cooked."