The theory behind the five second rule myth is finally explained. The rationale behind the question: is it safe to eat the food that hit the ground, as long as it picked up within 5 seconds.
As per Mirror, a Professor of food science at Clemson University, Paul Dawson decided to dig deeper in regards to the 5 seconds rule theory. He was then able to find surprising conclusions. He then wrote an article correlated with his research explaining the well-loved rule.
"When you drop a piece of food on the floor, is it really OK to eat if you pick up within five seconds? This urban food myth contends that if food spends just a few seconds on the floor, dirt and germs won't have much of a chance to contaminate it."
For him to be able to test the theory, he coated a variety of surfaces with salmonella bug and dropped the bread on the infected surface within 30 to 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, 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."
In regards to his research, it was discovered that picking up a food from a carpet is safer than tile or wood. Carpets are safer in terms of passing on bacteria.
"So the next time you consider eating dropped food, the odds are in your favor that you can eat that morsel and not get sick, 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."
