4 Things to Know About the 5 Seconds Rule
People always drop food be it at home or outside, a chip, a morsel of meat or bread and kids all the more so. And it isn’t unusual for parents to tell their kids not to eat off the floor. The Five seconds rule is about eating food that has fallen down on the floor-picking it up and eating it before five seconds. According to the rule, food picked up within five seconds do not contain as many as bacteria as are not contaminated and hence can be eaten safely. This rule applies to food dropped on dry surfaces and includes cafeterias, restaurants and kitchen floors. The five second rule has been an object of debate for a while now with even scientific research going into it. No one really knows if the food is really infected or not as it really depends on the food and the cleanliness of the surface it falls on. Here are some things to know about the 5 seconds rule.
1. There has been a scientific study on the 5 second rule
This study was conducted by a high school senior Jillian Clarke during a six-week internship in the food science and nutrition department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This supervised study eventually found out that there was a transfer of microorganisms within five seconds and the number was lesser on dry surfaces as E.coli, salmonella and other bacteria do not thrive on dry surfaces like they do on moist surfaces.
2. Clarke was awarded the Ig Noble prize for her research
For her research into the five seconds rule, Clarke was awarded the Ig noble prize by the Harvard University in the year 2004. Ig Noble is a prize awarded to research that may seem funny at first but are actually beneficial. She also lead a survey in which 70% of women and 56% of men said they had heard about the rule and that women were more prone to do it than men. She also found out that people were more okay with fallen candy and chip than put broccoli or potato in their mouth.
