The myth of the 5-second rule for dropped food

Have you ever heard of the 5-second rule for dropped food? You know, rumor has it that if you have dropped your food on the floor and picked it up in 5 seconds, you can still eat it. The midwives’ tale is that it takes 5 seconds for your food to get dirty with bacteria.

Is the midwife’s tale a common myth?

In 2014, some myth-busting biology students and their professor, Anthony Hilton at Aston University decided to put the theory to the test. The results are published on the Aston University, School of Life and Health Sciences blog, and the tale turns out to be true story, after all.

The team monitored the number of bacteria (E. Coli and Staphylococcus aureus) transferred from floor to food varies from 3 to 30 seconds. The variation depends on the variety of flooring and the type of food dropped.

So would carpet or wooden floor have a higher risk of bacteria transfer?

As it turns out, results show that carpets actually have the lowest risk of infecting your food with bacteria. But if you dropped food on moist, laminate or tiled floors for more than 5 seconds, it’s probably crawling with bacteria by then.

Even so, picking up food from the floor shouldn’t be an everyday practice, simply because we don’t know what type of bacteria might be on the surface.

“Consuming food dropped on the floor still carries an infection risk as it very much depends on which bacteria are present on the floor at the time”, says Professor Hilton.

Who picks up food from their floor?

The team thought it would also be a great idea to see who would pick up their food from the floor. Turns out, a great majority (87%) of those who answered the survey either say that they would, or have eaten food off the floor.

Next time you drop the snack, make those seconds count!

#food