THE 5 SECOND RULE NOW BACKED BY SCIENCE! Admit it Youve probably done it. Dropped a piece of food on the floor and cause no ones looking and itd be such a shame & waste, you pick up up and eat it. Well, good news, despite naysayers, youre in the safe zone, according to researchers from Aston Universitys School of Life and Health Sciences. A group of biology students decided to drop various foods (toast, pasta, biscuit and a sticky sweet) on three types of floors (carpet, laminate and tiled surfaces) and analyze the two common bacteria (bacteria E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus) that may have evolved between three to 30 seconds. Why? They wanted to see if there was any validity to the “five second rule,” the urban myth that it’s perfectly fine to eat something that has touched the floor for a maximum of five seconds. Here’s what they discovered, as explained by lead professor Anthony Hilton: …”the findings of this study will bring some light relief to those who have been employing the five-second rule for years, despite a general consensus that it is purely a myth. We have found evidence that the transfer from indoor flooring surfaces is incredibly poor, with carpet actually posing the lowest risk of bacterial transfer onto dropped food.” We contacted Professor Hilton and asked him at exactly which second did bacteria begin to form on “fallen food.” “Bacteria attach to the food immediately on contact of the food with the floor,” he said. “What we actually observed in our study was that if the food is retrieved from the floor immediately — in our case before 5 seconds — there were fewer bacteria on moist food types than if the food was retrieved at 30 seconds. This provides some evidence that for moist foods, the quicker you can pick them up the better.” When it comes to dry foods, Hilton said there was no difference in bacteria levels at 30 seconds than at three seconds, which suggests that “the initial impact is the major transfer events in these food types.” So the next time a piece of your chocolate plops on the ground, stop screaming, “Why me?” and feel free to snatch it up in 5 seconds and under and scarf it down…perhaps when no one is looking.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 05:01:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015