The Five Second Rule Only Works Because Your Kitchen Floor Is Relatively Clean.
The five second rule – the idea that you can safely eat dropped food if you pick it up within five seconds – is as controversial as it is popular . While technically not entirely true, it does work because your kitchen floor is pretty clean.
As explained in the video above, the five second rule is technically incorrect. In particular, there is not really a specific period of time during which foods cannot accumulate bacteria. Sitting on the floor for one second is as bad as sitting on the floor for five.
However, you’ve probably picked up food from the floor within five seconds and you’re fine. What gives? Well, as the video continues, your kitchen floor is probably one of the cleanest surfaces in your kitchen. You can eat food from it because you are cleaning it. A study by the International Journal of Environmental Health Research found that surfaces like the handle of a refrigerator and even a kitchen counter contain more bacteria colonies per square inch than a kitchen floor.
You also touch many objects every day that are much dirtier than your kitchen floor. Your phone, wallet, wallet and money are washed less often and touched more often than the kitchen floor. They have a much higher potential for carrying bacteria, but no one thinks twice before grabbing their smartphone while eating. Well, at least not for health reasons.
Of course, this depends a lot on how much you clean your floor and what types of foods you drop. However, if you mop your kitchen floor but don’t clean something that you touch frequently, such as a faucet or doorknobs, then you won’t put yourself at extra risk by simply eating food that has been on the floor for a couple of seconds. So don’t worry. You can still eat the food you dropped. Just make sure you clean the floor (and all other surfaces in the kitchen) from time to time.
The five second rule: it still isn’t. | Medical triage