The 5-Second Rule Is For Real, People!

You drop a delicious snack on the floor and quickly pick it up in a matter of seconds. Is too dirty to eat, or is it just fine?  Duh-duh-duh!

“The 5-second rule” has gotten the reputation for being a myth — conveniently employed to salvage dropped treats.  But wait, it's not a joke.

 

Recently, British scientists tested this theory and found that the amount of time a piece of food spends on the floor (and what type is surface it is) really does affect whether or not it’s safe to eat.

Researchers at Aston University in Birmingham, England tested the safety of various foods (pasta, ham, dried fruit, sticky dessert, toast, biscuits) after being tainted by the common bacteria Escherichia coli (E.coli) and Staphylococcus aureus from carpet, tiled, and laminate surfaces. They allowed the food to remain on the floor from anywhere between three and 30 seconds.

The study found some surprising results. First of all, you're better off dropping (and eating) food on a carpet, because bacteria is less easily transfered from a rug than from tile. On the other end of the spectrum, food dropped on kitchen laminate has a faster bacteria-to-snack transfer rate.  They also found that dry food, like crackers and chips, catch less bacteria than moist food. But overall, it takes more than five seconds to really sully a snack.

"Consuming food dropped on the floor still carries an infection risk as it very much depends on which bacteria are present on the floor at the time; however 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,” Anthony Hilton, Professor of Microbiology said in a press release.

That’s good news for the 87 percent of people who claim they would eat fallen food, according to the study. Still, it it a good idea? “Definitely not,” Paul Dawson, PhD, a professor of food science at Dawson University in South Carolina, tells Yahoo Shine. “While it’s true that the type of flooring is a factor in how much bacteria gets transferred to food — for example, carpet fibers do absorb some bacteria — all dropped food is contaminated to different degrees.”

And while the risk of actually getting sick or experiencing long-term illness is generally low (unless food is dropped in high-risk areas such as the kitchen, a breeding ground for cross-contamination bacteria), there’s also a “yuck factor” to the idea — a potato chip can't look too tempting after falling on the floor where you walked with your sneakers. "Do you really need to eat that small piece of food? It's really not worth it," says Dawson.