The Truth Behind the 'Five Second Rule'

It's a law commonly followed by people but is there any truth behind it? 

If you're unfamilar, the '5-Second Rule' dictates if food has only been on the floor for a couple of seconds, it's totally fine to eat but any longer and it isn't.

Paul Dawson, professor of food science at Clemson University put the urban food myth to the test by coating a variety of different surfaces with nasty salmonella bugs and then dropping a piece of bread on them for five, 30 or 60 seconds.

"We found that the amount of bacteria transferred to either kind of food didn’t depend much on how long the food was in contact with the contaminated surface – whether for a few seconds or for a whole minute," he continued.

So time actually isn’t really a factor then after all!

"It looks like what’s at issue is less how long your food languishes on the floor and much more how infested with bacteria that patch of floor happens to be."

The next question is 'what kind of floors are safer then?'. The test found that carpeted surfaces were actually safer than tile or wood, as they passed on less bacteria

"So the next time you consider eating dropped food, the odds are in your favour that you can eat that morsel and not get sick," he added.

There’s a big BUT though….

"But in the rare chance that there is a microorganism that can make you sick on the exact spot where the food dropped, you can be fairly sure the bug is on the food you are about to put in your mouth."