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Rethinking the five-second rule
Filed under: Health & Safety: Babies, Nutrition: Health
You know the five-second rule, don't you? If something has been on the floor for five seconds or less, it's okay to eat it/give it to the kids/put it back in the baby's mouth. Or IS it?
Maybe. Maybe not. It depends.
A very funny article in yesterday's New York Times looks at scientific research into the validity of the five-second rule. The author's interest was piqued not by a toddler who suddenly came down with stomach flu after eating French fries retrieved from a restaurant floor (which was my wakeup call that the five-second rule was probably not the best idea) but by a scientific paper issued earlier this month by researchers at Clemson University. "Accompanied by six graphs, two tables and equations whose terms include 'bologna' and 'carpet,' it's a thorough microbiological study of the five-second rule: the idea that if you pick up a dropped piece of food before you can count to five, it's O.K. to eat it." The researchers treated pieces of wood, tile, and carpet with various types of bacteria, including E. coli and salmonella, and then dropped pieces of bologna and bread on them for varying lengths of time, anywhere from five seconds to a full minute.
What did the scientists find? That bacteria live longer than we might think they do, that it only takes a few germs to contaminate food, and that tile and carpet hold more bacteria than wood. Most homes and restaurants have either tile or carpet or wood floors, if you think about it, and bacteria grew on all three surfaces. And in the time it takes you to count to five, food can indeed pick up enough germs to make you sick. NOW think about all the times your precious little one has suddenly appeared with a cheese stick in hand, on a day that you haven't served any cheese sticks. Oh yeah. Gross.
The writer comes to this very appropriate conclusion: "Of course we can never know for sure how many harmful microbes there are on any surface. But we know enough now to formulate the five-second rule, version 2.0: If you drop a piece of food, pick it up quickly, take five seconds to recall that just a few bacteria can make you sick, then take a few more to think about where you dropped it and whether or not it's worth eating."
Maybe. Maybe not. It depends.
A very funny article in yesterday's New York Times looks at scientific research into the validity of the five-second rule. The author's interest was piqued not by a toddler who suddenly came down with stomach flu after eating French fries retrieved from a restaurant floor (which was my wakeup call that the five-second rule was probably not the best idea) but by a scientific paper issued earlier this month by researchers at Clemson University. "Accompanied by six graphs, two tables and equations whose terms include 'bologna' and 'carpet,' it's a thorough microbiological study of the five-second rule: the idea that if you pick up a dropped piece of food before you can count to five, it's O.K. to eat it." The researchers treated pieces of wood, tile, and carpet with various types of bacteria, including E. coli and salmonella, and then dropped pieces of bologna and bread on them for varying lengths of time, anywhere from five seconds to a full minute.
What did the scientists find? That bacteria live longer than we might think they do, that it only takes a few germs to contaminate food, and that tile and carpet hold more bacteria than wood. Most homes and restaurants have either tile or carpet or wood floors, if you think about it, and bacteria grew on all three surfaces. And in the time it takes you to count to five, food can indeed pick up enough germs to make you sick. NOW think about all the times your precious little one has suddenly appeared with a cheese stick in hand, on a day that you haven't served any cheese sticks. Oh yeah. Gross.
The writer comes to this very appropriate conclusion: "Of course we can never know for sure how many harmful microbes there are on any surface. But we know enough now to formulate the five-second rule, version 2.0: If you drop a piece of food, pick it up quickly, take five seconds to recall that just a few bacteria can make you sick, then take a few more to think about where you dropped it and whether or not it's worth eating."
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
5-10-2007 @ 3:01PM
A said...Mythbusters did an episode on the very exact thing.
IIRC, time was not a factor as to whether or not the dropped food got contaminated. (I think they "waited" up to a couple minutes). What did make a difference is how dirty the floor was.
Reply
5-10-2007 @ 5:29PM
Karen said...Oh brother. We heartily subscribe to the 5--or 10! Gasp!-second rule and we've never gotten sick. If we do I will take full responsiblity but I'm not worried about it.
Reply
5-10-2007 @ 6:56PM
Michelle said...It depends on where we are. I know how clean(or not) my floors are, so I have been known to take my 2 year old out of his booster chair to eat the food he threw on the floor. Someone else's house, especially where there are other kids or animals, no and public places, EEEEEWWWWWW!
Reply
5-10-2007 @ 7:13PM
Sandyone said...These scientists tested the 5 second rule using 5 seconds as a minimum? Duh. Didn't they read the 5 second rule??? (and we don't constrict ourselves to 5 seconds, either!)
It's all about the floor.
Reply
5-10-2007 @ 6:56PM
jen said...Oh dear. I think I don't need dinner now.
Reply
5-10-2007 @ 8:39PM
Ann Adams said...For us it depends on the floor and the food dropped.
Bread and jam, jam side down? Probably not unless they do it when I'm not looking. Dry food? Absolutely.
Reply
5-11-2007 @ 12:10PM
Ginny said...Ewwwwwwwwww who would eat something that dropped on a restaurant floor. GAG. I don't follow the 5 second rule at all. I always just thought it was what people said who did pick something up and eat it. GROSS! The only thing I will "eat" that has fallen on the floor is a pill. I wipe it off first tho. ;)
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5-11-2007 @ 12:44PM
Leian said...Wow - I didn't even know there WAS a 5-second "rule". What logic is there (or was there) behind thinking that it takes 5 seconds for something to be contaminated? If it falls on the floor, I would think it's dirty - did someone somewhere time the bacteria crawling onto the item? I don't know who made this rule up but I have to say, it sounds more convenient than sensible, (no offense intended to those who follow it, but it's the kind of thing that if you think about it, it really doesn't make much sense). Out in public, if it falls on the floor that's definitely the end of it. In our house, it MIGHT depend on when the floor was last cleaned and yes, what item it is - a dry cheerio on a dry floor I just mopped, MAYBE. Since we wear our shoes in the house, we are tracking in germs from outside - I don't know what's on my shoe soles, or my husband's - he takes the train into NYC every day for work, God only knows what he steps in (which is why we're considering the leave-the-shoes-at-the-door thing, in which case maybe we would be freer about eating dropped dry food...) For now, unless we just mopped, in the garbage it goes. Besides, I don't really want my kids thinking eating food off the floor is okay - young kids don't always know enough to make the distinction between when they should or shouldn't do it, and since it's not a behavior that is that wonderful to begin with, I just prefer to nip it in the bud period.
Leian
http://www.childofleisure.com
Reply
5-12-2007 @ 1:12AM
Sandyone said...Oh, yeah. It's not really a rule. It *is* just something we say. Because, frankly, I don't have a time limit. If my kid drops food during lunch and I don't get it picked up before dinner (or after) and my kid finds it and eats it, I don't really mind. It's just food and it's just germs.
Unless their immune systems are compromised, it's not going to hurt them.
It's not a real rule. It's just something clever that somebody once said and it stuck. That's why I chuckled at the idea that somebody actually did a scientific study on it. I also thought it was silly to test a 5-second rule with more than 5 seconds.
My kids are famous for scavenging their car seats. Now, that grosses even me out!
Reply
5-11-2007 @ 10:51PM
SKL said...Wow, I too thought the 5-second rule was tongue-in-cheek. A dry cheerio on a reasonably clean floor is OK for much more than 5 seconds - though there is a limit.
I think it's a matter of practicality and common sense. Children need to be exposed to germs - a child raised in a bubble will miss out on developing natural immunities, and is more likely to have lifelong allergies.
And while we need to teach children about cleanliness, we can't spend our entire lives rinsing off everything that ever touches a flat surface. And in principal, I don't believe in throwing food in the garbage unless it is really inedible. On the other hand, I will not eat off a floor whose cleanliness I don't monitor. In my house, we don't wear shoes and we don't have pets, so I have a reasonable idea of what might be on our floors.
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5-16-2007 @ 11:49PM
Sheryl said...I always thought the 5 second rule was a joke. I try to discourage my kids from eating stuff off the floor, and now that they're older it's not really an issue anymore. However there's still a cornucopia of microbes out there waiting for a nice host body. I say, bring it on, life's too short to worry about germs.
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