Easy Pickings

If you were brought up proper (pardon my grammar) certain rules will have formed the framework for a happy and fulfilled life.

Amongst these will be knowing the importance of saying please and thank-you, respecting your elders, being honest, working hard, keeping healthy and the one that has formed the core of my existence - to only eat food that has been on the floor for five seconds or less.

The "five second rule" has often been regarded as an urban myth but there is now a broad basis in science to suggest that there is in fact some truth behind it.

Various academic and scientific institutions have spent time, money and resources on investigating the susceptibility of dropped foodstuffs to attract bacteria and other nasties, in my own experience including lint, grit, beach sand, insects, miscellaneous fluids, household dust and sawdust.

The idea that dirt is good and hygiene somehow "unnatural" has been popularised in the media. For those who believe that a little dirt never hurt anyone, there is a sobering statistic that each year in the UK around a million people suffer a food-related illness. Of these, about 20,000 people require hospital treatment and up to 500 may die as a result.

You can therefore appreciate the confusion in the minds of the public faced with seemingly contradicting information it being far from clear whether the five second rule could be relied upon even though much quoted by parents to their offspring.

The study, undertaken by final year Biology students at Aston University,Birmingham, UK, monitored the transfer of the common bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus from a variety of indoor floor types (carpet, laminate and tiled surfaces) to samples of edibles of toast, pasta, biscuit and a sticky sweet when contact was made from 3 to 30 seconds.

The results showed that time is indeed a significant factor in the transfer of bacteria from a floor surface to a piece of food as well as the type of flooring the food has been dropped on.

Harmful or contaminative bacteria is least likely to be transferred from carpeted surfaces and most likely to transfer from laminate or tiled surfaces to moist foods making contact for more than 5 seconds.

It was cited by the student researchers that  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.

The playing with food in the laboratory was accompanied by questionnaires to the general public which revealed some interesting and rather shocking attitudes.

87% of people surveyed said they would eat food dropped on the floor, or already have done so
55% of those that would, or have, eaten food dropped in the floor are women
81% of the women who would eat food from the floor would follow the 5 second rule

I can say, having reached the age of 52 that exposure to germs from retrieving dropped food has not, as far as I know, caused me any long term harm. It may even apply to food that I have dropped myself as well as that I have come across just lying around.

Today's lunch for example;