The 5-Second Rule Investigated

j-beda writes "Here is an interesting report on a student project about the 5-second rule: ' If You Drop It, Should You Eat It? Scientists Weigh In on the 5-Second Rule.' 'According to Clarke, a senior at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, the 5-second rule dates back to the time of Genghis Khan, who first determined how long it was safe for food to remain on a floor when dropped there. Khan had slightly lower standards, however; he specified 12 hours, more or less.' How long can you safely leave dropped food on the floor before picking it up to eat? You know you've always wanted to have the definitive answer ..."

Comments

Findings don't just apply to floors

[tessaiga]

Among Clarke's findings:

--Cookies and candy are much more likely to be picked up and eaten than cauliflower or broccoli.

I find the same thing applies to cookies and candies on plates too.

I use the five hair rule

[karmavore]

I have a dog, four cats a wife two daughters and a niece. If it comes off the ground with more than 5 hairs or if a hair is more than 5 inches it's no good.

More importantly,

[schmaltz]

If somebody else is there and witnesses the food item's descent and impact, does that affect your decisionmaking, regardless of 5 seconds or 12 hours?

Not the floor

[Alethes]

It depends on much more important factors than the cleanliness of the floor:

1) How hungry I am
2) How good the food is
3) How able I am to replace the food I dropped

Health be damned!

Re:Only One Suprise, Guess At The 12 Hour Rule

[skwirlmaster]

Perhaps a "average" woman's floor is clearner than the average man's. The before mentioned would-I-eat-off-this-floor rule comes into play.
My experience (at least in high school and college) that my buddies floors were quite unsanitariy.

Re:um, yuck

[pauljlucas]

Do you know how many bacteria, yeast, and fungus are on the floor? Your really eating foot-fungus when you eat something that just fell on the floor.

Do you know how many bacteria, yeast, and fungus, not to mention dried snot from people wiping their noses, are on handrails, doornobs, and kitchen counters? You're really just eating everything that hands have touched (unless you are religious about washing your hands before eating, and not touching anything else while eating).

Lousy Experiment

[Red Pointy Tail]

Taking samples of 1 square inch and monitoring it for microbes and spores? What a lousy experiment.

What they should do is to hire 500 students to continually drop food and candy on the floor, pick it up again for consumption, and then monitor their well-being over the course of many weeks. Those wimps ;)

Re:um, yuck

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

That would explain this case of athlete's stomach...

Re:um, yuck

[vericgar]

Actually, if you had read the article, they were surprised at how little of that stuff really was on the floor....

Re:I use the five hair rule

[Anonymous Coward]

Double Tard.
You had to be crude, but then you couldn't even do it right.

He's bragging that he's surrounded by all that pussy.

That way you include the cats.

so how long does it take?

[Mr.Coffee]

I , for one, am outraged! the article stated that the E.coli bacteria transferred to the gummy bears in 5 seconds, but they didn't do any testing to see what the minimal time for safety was. how am i supposed to know how long that cookie is still good for?

I'm stickin with it

[Stubtify]

if you have e. coli on your floors the 5 second rule is the least of your worries.

5 second rule?

[Kowh]

The five second rule is stricted enforced around here. In fact, usually we don't even get all five seconds. Any dropped food instantly becomes property of the canine clean-up service, and they don't take kindly to "take-backs".

Or rather they do, but they look at you with puppy dog eyes and you're forced to drop the food again.

Re:Deep Fry It

[richie2000]

In some resturaunts if it falls on the floor it just gets deep fried for a few seconds. I think you can deep fry just about anything...

I just want to know how they get the floor to fit in the fryer.

Stinky Meat

[jbarr]

For a truely (almost) scientific look at what happens when you leave food out, check out the Stinky Meat Project.

Not for the faint of heart...