Imagine that you
are eating a cookie, and suddenly you drop it on a floor. What will you do
next? Will you pick it up and throw it into a bin or just put it in your mouth
because it has been on the floor only a few second?
According to “Rethinking The Five-Second Rule: With Carpet, There's NoRush”, biology students at the
Aston University in Birmingham, United Kingdom found that if you pick up moist
snacks such as gummy bears within a few seconds after you drop them on a tile
or laminate floor, they will contain fewer bacteria than if you wait longer.
However, molecular biologist Eric Schulze says that you can get sick if there are
harmful bacteria on your food, it is up to your luck.
When
I was a child, I often saw my friends use the five-second rule. I have never
believed this rule and still don’t believe this rule. I think it is just a joke
and everyone knows that food which is dropped on a floor is absolutely unclean.
However, when I eat snacks and drop a piece of them, if it is dropped on a
clean floor in my home, I usually pick it up, pop back in my mouth, and
continue eating my snacks. In my opinion, this is a bad habit. Although food
which has been dropped on a floor for five seconds or three seconds contains a
small number of bacteria, it is still dirty and has some bacteria which can
make you sick. Bacteria and germ are everywhere and I think they cannot count!
My
solution for managing dropped food is washing it off, if it can be rinsed off. Suppose
you drop your candy or biscuit, please take a few second to snatch it up, throw
it off, and find something else to eat. However, if you think you have a strong
immunity system, you can eat dropped food. It is your own choice. The best way
is eating carefully, so you will not drop any food. Moreover, don’t forget to
wash your hands before eating because your hands sometimes are dirtier than
dropped food.
__________
Reference
Doucleff,M. (2014, March 15). Rethinking The Five-Second Rule: With
Carpet, There's No Rush. NPR. Retrieved March 18, 2014 from http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/03/15/290101955/rethinking-the-five-second-rule-with-carpet-theres-no-rush
When I was young, I heard about this. Same as you, I thought it's not true, and still thought like this until I read your blog post. In fact, I don't care too much about dropped foods if they drop on clean floor, but if not, although there is a research that show it's safe, I throw it away. As you said, I think our hands are dirtier than dropped foods.
ReplyDeleteCool title.
ReplyDeleteYour post reminds me of my mum, but I think she might have gone past 5 seconds, perhaps with a bit of washing under water: a very practical woman.
If also reminds me of a piece of wisdom from one of the authors of my favourite French cook book, in the form of a question: "If a leg of lamb is dropped on the floor and no one else sees it, was it on the floor?"
Actually, I just did a quick Google, and perhaps my memory is more dramatic than reality. What Child says she said is: "and I said: 'Well, if you're all alone in the kitchen, nobody will know.' "
How sad that the evidence I could find doesn't support my memory - one of the benefits of citing sources in such cases is it forces to check. Maybe my mother said something like the leg of lamb quotation - it sounds like something she would. And I still Julia's wonderfully wholesome attitude. She has also greatly encouraged my praising the virtues of things like butter tastings!
I don't actually use her masterpiece (Child, Bertholle & Beck, 2009) to cook French food, preferring to read the recipes and look at the drawings, while imaging the delights to be created, but I did also give my oldest sister and youngest brother copies as gifts in the hopes that they would put it into practice when I was visiting. My brother has taken up the challenge, but my sister prefers to stick to traditional Aussie cooking, which is OK - I'm also fond of bacon and eggs followed by pancakes for breakfast.
I used to love cooking, but these days I prefer to let more skilled people do it for me, except for the buttery, French-style omelettes I enjoy for breakfast.
References
Child, J., Bertholle, L., & Beck, S. (2009). Mastering the Art of French Cooking. New York: Knopf.
Julia Child On France, Fat And Food On The Floor. (2011, September 1). Retrieved from NPR website : http://www.npr.org/2011/09/01/139793130/julia-child-on-france-fat-and-food-on-the-floor
I was happy to read "Study Questions Fat and Heart Disease Link" in The New York Times just now - it reports on a large analysis of the links between diet and heart disease which suggests that it's actually not a problem for me to keep following the lead of the wonderful Julia Child and continue to enjoy creamy cheeses, cream and butter in substantial amounts (O'Connor, 2014).
DeleteSo, lashings of Blue Stilton on thick, fresh bread for my afternoon snack?
Getting back to In's actual post, it's probably best not to drop your bread spread with Stilton face down on the floor - it's a sticky sort of surface. On the other hand, it's already so full of mould, could any other such things hurt much?
Meanwhile, the rapidly changing advice from experts on diet can be confusing, and annoying. Thankfully, I never worried too much about avoiding butter and cream, but some of my friends have missed out on lot of innocent, healthy pleasure by taking seriously the advice of their doctors and others, whose information is often out of date. Professional nutritionists are, I suspect, more likely to at least be aware of the latest research in this area.
reference
O'connor, A. (2014, March 17). Study Questions Fat and Heart Disease Link. The New York Times. Retrieved March 19, 2014 from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/study-questions-fat-and-heart-disease-link/
That is what I did when I was a child! However their parent have to take care and teach their child to protect themselves by give a reason. I always saw my aunt teach her son not to eat food that's already fall on the ground while he was young, and this make him know by habit.
ReplyDeleteI am one of those who believe this rule. I usually pick a piece of dropped potato chip from the floor and enjoy with it, but I will not eat it if it was dropped on sand, carpet and so on. This rule, in my opinion, is not exactly a rule we obey but something that told me that the taste of that chip is more interesting than a risk to get diarrhea. lol
ReplyDeleteI also usually use five-second rule when I was young , but I only picked up and ate snacks from clean floors. At that time, I think I didn't even know what germ or bacteria is. I might only know that the snack is delicious and I wanted to eat it. However, when I grow up, I stop doing that because now, I know that if I eat the dropped snacks, I may have some disease such as diarrhea.
ReplyDeleteNormally I won't pick up snack that drop on the floor and eat it. I think it is very dirty so I won't keep to my mounth, give it to friends nearby instead lol. Well, I think that rule can be use if the snack which droped on the floor is your favourite one. Like telling yourself "It's clean, it's clean, it's clean." then eat it like nothing happen. By the way, germs are every where.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I think this situation can be happen to all kind of food but I still don't know why it usually happen with my favorite snack. So, I decided to warm it with my breath and then put it in my mouth, in case it still on a table.
ReplyDeleteI ever made it before. When I was young I like do to like that, when my snacks were dropped I will count five-second and I will say "oh! it just only five-second it's ok I still can eat it" and most of my friends do same as me too. And I believe that there are many poeple do same as me. Now I am mot do it anymore because it's dirty and there has a bacteria. I think parents should give an advice to their children about snacks that drop on the floor because we don't know how the floor are dirty. Sometimes it has an effect and make people who eat it, sick.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually do that from time to time. But, I think we should take this study from biologist as an advice. It's like he said, if you are unlucky, you might caught a serious germs, and it can make you sick.
ReplyDeleteFor me, pick up dropped food quickly and eat them never make me get sick. What scare me more is eating some street food in Bangkok ,because a lot of them are not so clean and you have to be careful with that.