UK scientist has great news for food lovers

Great news for all clumsy cooks, anyone dealing regularly with small children and those who just love their food: the ‘five second rule’ is actually correct!

We’ve all joked about the ‘five second rule’ when quickly picking up food, or sometimes cutlery, that’s been dropped on what’s, hopefully, a clean floor.

Now, a professor for Britain’s Aston University has found that there was almost no reason to be concerned about retrieving food dropped only momentarily, according to reports by UK news outlets.

Anthony Hilton said while food covered in visible dirt shouldn’t be eaten, “the science shows that food is unlikely to have picked up harmful bacteria from a few seconds spent on an indoor floor.”

It was not that germs couldn’t transfer from the floor to the food, Hilton added, according to the Independent, but that the type of floor surface, the type of food and the length of time it spend on the floor were all key to whether the germs transferred were dangerous to a person’s health.

The Mirror reported that Hilton’s research found carpets were the least risky surface on which to practice the five second rule, while tiled or laminate floors were riskier. The newspaper said Hilton’s findings were based on his 2014 study that looked at how many staph and E.coli bacteria were picked up by toast, pasta, biscuits and sticky sweets after they spend between three and 30 seconds on a floor.

Who uses the five second rule? Do you think modern society is excessively concerned by cleanliness and food hygiene?