A number of researchers have studied the 5 Second Rule the most recent study about Myth Debunked, was published in September in the journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Previously, a high school student studied gummy bears and fudge-striped cookies dropped on a floor contaminated with E. coli. He found that food was contaminated in less than 5 seconds. So, what did the 2016 researchers find?
What is the 5 Second Rule – the belief is if you drop any food on the ground/floor and pick it up in less than 5 seconds, the food is less contaminated and thus, “safe” to eat.
Type of surface – the researchers studied dropping food onto different surfaces: stainless steel, ceramic tile, wood and carpet.
Bacteria – they coated each of these surfaces with bacteria, the bacterium Enterobacter aerogens
Food – they dropped watermelon, plain bread, buttered bread and gummy candy on the different surfaces.
Time elapsed – they let each of these foods be on the ground for 1, 5, 30 or 300 seconds (5 minutes)
Their findings:
The longer the fallen food touched the surface, the greater the contamination. But even after 1 second, there was some contamination.
Watermelon, because of its greater water content, was the most contaminated of the foods tested.
Some take-a-ways:
- The longer food is on the ground, the more contaminated.
- Wetter foods, like watermelon, are more contaminated than foods without much water, like hard candies.
- Foods falling on carpet are less contaminated than foods falling on ceramic tile or the other surfaces tested.
- Foods falling on the floor for 5 seconds or less, are not likely to make you sick.
The Berkeley Wellness Letter reviewed this study and noted: There is a big difference picking up a cracker from a just-cleaned dry kitchen floor, versus the floor near the cat litter box. So consider where the food has been dropped before munching down the dropped item.
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