The 5 Second Rule !

5-second rule: urban myth or hygiene fact? 

Read this article which seeks to confirm once and for all.

Whether your child is 4 or 14, a common dilemma for many parents at meal times is the issue of the 5-second rule. The term has become a rule of thumb for many who believe that if food is dropped on the ground and picked up within five seconds, the food will not be contaminated with any germs or bacteria.

We’re not so sure, so we sent one of our editors off to find out once and for all if there is any scientific substance behind the claim or if it’s a misguided superstition.

While some of you reading this may be repulsed by the idea, at one point or another most of us would’ve faced this dilemma. Busy parents more so; when you’re running late of an evening and you’re racing to cook a meal and get ready at the same time, your child’s hungry and your hurrying to dish up there food and then… a bread roll, a sneaky potato or even a piece of grilled chicken out of your hand and onto the floor.

The theory is that any food dropped onto the floor is safe to eat if it’s picked up within five seconds.

What would you do?

Before you start dusting off that slice of pizza or blowing on that rogue chip – Dr Ronald Kutler of Queen Mary, University of London has tested this hypothesis to find out whether this is really a myth or actually a fact.

Putting the 5-second rule to the test

To discover the truth behind this common superstition, Dr Kutler has used three food stuffs; a pizza slice, an apple chunk and a piece of toast, which will be dropped onto 3 different surfaces to identify the sorts of bacteria that they pick up, if any, after an exposure time of five seconds.

The test was controlled and involved dropping the pizza slice on a kitchen floor, an apple chunk on a street pavement and the slice of toast, butter side down of course, on a carpet – all for five seconds.

Back at the lab Dr Kutler prepares the samples for testing, incubating the cultures overnight.

Results time

A few days on, we examine whether the 5-second rule, used by most parents at one stage or another is true or false.

Starting with the pizza slice that was dropped on the kitchen floor; the results showed that even after the short exposure time, there had been considerable bacteria growth, disturbingly some of which included faecal bacteria. Next in line was the apple chunk, dropped onto the street pavement. Again a large amount of bacteria was picked up.

Finally we tested the slice of toast and unsurprisingly the butter helped pick up even more bacteria, surpassing the levels found on the other two tests.

Dr Kutler performed the test several times under shorter exposure times. This found that regardless of whether a food substance was on the floor for 5 seconds or 0.5 seconds, bacteria are still picked up and the food source will become contaminated.

It seems that while many of us treat the 5-second rule as an acceptable benchmark, bacteria is less forgiving. And more importantly it doesn’t seem to take the type of food dropped on the floor into account either.

One thing to keep in mind though is that while the tests proved that bacteria is ready and waiting for your next food mishap, this doesn’t necessarily mean you will become sick after eating. To be honest, there are bacteria found in most food types regardless of whether they’re out of a packet or a piece of fresh fruit. Much of the bacteria are also transferred from our hands, forks and knives or from touching work surfaces while preparing food – our bodies generally offer defence against these bacteria. So while the 5-second rule is a common myth, it would take a substantial presence of bad bacteria to make us ill.

Author Bio

Chris Solieri

After 5 years of higher education graduating with a BA Hons from RHUL and an MA from Durham University, Chris has somehow retained an indubitable passion for education and journalism.

Now, the lead blog editor for LearnersCloud, a unique e-learning and GCSE revisionresource provider, Chris’s passion for innovative technologies has flourished and with it, a desire to share his own insights, reviews and experiences on integrating effective technologies.

This article is taken from Dadzclub

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