Do not believe the 5 second rule ....
By dhigambaram
@dhigambaram (1132)
India
February 11, 2007 4:39am CST
The "5 second rule" is when any food falls to the ground, it is safe to eat if it is picked off the ground in five seconds or less. Have you heard of this "rule" before? If you follow this rule, I am going to explain why you should not follow this rule.
There is more to consider than how much food is contaminated then the time. Things that are important to consider are the shape of the food, moisture, temperature, acidity, and place food landed. Also, if you have ever seen the show Mythbusters, this "rule" was BUSTED. Even before I saw this episode I did not believe this rule, because my food service education has taught me that food can be contaminated very easily, which the most common way is when someone contaminates the food with his hands. The Mythbuster hosts took bacteria samples from multiple locations. They let the food stay on the ground for both 2 seconds and 6 seconds. The results were that the number of bacteria colonies on the food was similar for both the 2 seconds and 6 seconds. Again, what influenced the bacteria growth more (when the food fell to the ground) was the amount of moisture in the food, shape, temperature, acidity, and where the food landed on the ground. Again, if you follow this rule... I recommend that you do not believe this rule and simply just throw out your food when it falls to the groun
2 responses
@marief2rnurse (2704)
• United States
11 Feb 07
If people around see you drop your food ofcourse you're not going to pick it up. If no one is around and you really want it, then you can eat it. I'm sure you yourself know how dirty your floor is. I don't think anyone's gotten sick from it. In Hongkong, a man I saw bought food from the street, the kind on a stick and you dip in sauce. It fell on the ground on the street and he still picked it up and ate it! Yuck!
@volcom (161)
• United States
11 Feb 07
omg...Thats pretty nasty. Can you imagine what could be on that?
@volcom (161)
• United States
11 Feb 07
Actually the 5 second rule is a myth that has been proven false. I watched an episode on this on mythbusters, i'll explain what they did. first they dropped a pieced of food on the gorund then they timed it for 5 seconds. After this then then swabbed the food and put it into these little trays and they used normal food right out of the bag and then they had the food that dropped onto the floor. Then they heated up the trays in this little oven thing so the bacteria colonies could grow faster then normal so they could see the test results. The food thta was dropped for 5 seconds was loaded with bacteria ect. So this rule has been proven false. I hope i've helped you guys out.
