Who hasn't done it? Something yummy slips out of your hand and lands -- plop! -- onto the kitchen floor. You snatch it back up, calculate how long it's been since you mopped or swept, then remind yourself of the age-old adage: the five-second rule.
If it was good enough for Mom, it must be good enough for you, too. Right?
Well, it turns out Mother doesn't always know best. And just as in real estate, it's all about location, location, location.
Clemson University food scientist Paul Dawson and his team of researchers have debunked the five-second rule in this month's issue of National Geographic, proving that potentially dangerous bacteria can attach itself on contact to fallen food.
A zero-tolerance policy for food that accidentally finds the floor is wise, but who wants to waste food? Some situations are less risky than others, according to Dr. Harley Rotbart, professor of microbiology and pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
A kitchen floor is ground zero for bacteria, as opposed to the playground. “The kitchen floor is probably a zero-second zone because the bacteria from uncooked meat and chicken juices are more hazardous than the ‘soil' bacteria outside,” says Rotbart, who wrote the book Germ-Proof Your Kids.
Need you even ask about the bathroom floor? “It's a great potential source of bacteria and shorter-lived viruses that can cause gastrointestinal illness if ingested,” says Rotbart.
Source: National Geographic, TIME
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