Oops you accidentally dropped your food on the floor. The first thing you shout is “the 5 second rule!” and you just try to eat it as quickly as possible. Secretly, we’ve all done this. We just believed that after 5 seconds those bacteria would start to attach to our food. Unfortunately, we have bad news for you.
5-second rule
Where does that 5-second rule actually come from? The so-called rule dates from the 1960s. An American TV chef Julia Child dropped a potato pancake on the floor during one of her cooking shows. Oopsie! She didn’t hesitate for a moment and quickly picked up the pancake on live television and placed it in the pan. She then told her viewers that as long as you pick up your food as quickly as possible, it can still be used. According to her, bacteria would not stick to the food so quickly.
Research
Scientist Dr. Paul Dawson, a scientist at the University of Clemson, decided to test how foolproof the rule really is. He decided to investigate this by looking at how many bacteria are on your food after 5 seconds and how many after a longer period of time. A surprising result emerged. But how did he investigate this? He combined tiles, wood and a carpet with salmonella and then placed a piece of bread on it for 5, 30 or 60 seconds. Paul then looked at how many bacteria were on the food. He repeated this after two, four, eight and 24 hours to see how long bacteria remained on the surface.
True or False?
No, this rule is certainly not true. It really doesn’t matter how long food has been on the surface. The bacteria are there anyway. What does make a difference is how many bacteria are on the surface. So a clean floor is really less bad than a dirty floor. But what type of floor can you drop your food on? On carpet! The test showed that approximately 1 percent of the salmonella was on the food, while the wood and tiles contained more than 48-70%.
Dangerous?
The chance of you getting sick is quite small. Yet of course you always run the risk of contracting some nasty bacteria. We therefore recommend that you leave the food you drop behind you. Even though it was so tasty, it’s better to get something new or even better not to drop your food at all. So next time, don’t try to pick up your food in a hurry, because those seconds really won’t do it for him. A bit of a shame actually, isn’t it?
