
‘Five Second Rule’ for Food on Floor Is Untrue, Study Finds - sethbannon
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/science/five-second-rule.html
======
mattaltieri
I'm pretty sure the "5 second rule" is just something people (like myself) use
to justify doing something gross, such as eating something that was dropped;
and at least in my case, I never believed for a minute that it was "sanitary"
if it spent less than 5 seconds on the floor.

It's more a mental thing ... if it's only been there for 5 seconds, it's cool.
If it is longer than 5 seconds, well, then you're eating food that's been
_sitting_ on the floor. Now that I'm typing it, it makes even less sense --
but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing it. I've made it 30+ years
without side-effect ... ha

~~~
potatosoup
Yeah, many of the comments talk about bacteria, evolution, our immune systems
being able to deal with bacteria, and that is all fine and good.

But what about chemicals and cleaning supplies? Eg the floors in a restaurant
(and tables, too) get cleaned with some strong chemical products. That's
definitely not food grade and no amount of evolving is going to help you deal
with that. I see people put their forks, etc, on directly on table surfaces
that were previously wiped with a cleaning cloth and I think that's careless.
The floor would be even worse.

Eating from your dog is fine and probably has health benefits. Eating from a
(chemically cleaned) floor is still not.

~~~
drb311
"I see people put their forks, etc, on tables"

What? If you can't put your forks on the table where can you put them?

I always put my fork on the table, that's what the tables for.

How do you lay your table?!

~~~
nextweek2
Forks are often wrapped or placed on a napkin you can then lean them against
the plate whilst you're eating.

A posh restaurant would have a table cloth that would be cleaned daily with
less harmful chemicals.

~~~
donutz
Wouldn't the napkin be touchin the table then? Or do you ask for a fresh
napkin so you don't have to use the one from the table? And ask about the
storage of the napkins and silverware, in comparison to any cleaning solutions
or other chemicals?

------
Houshalter
Of course it picks up bacteria. Bacteria are numerous and everywhere. But
we've lived with them so long that we can deal with unsterile environments for
the most part. Most people for most of history were not germaphobes, and
didn't even know bacteria existed. If eating something off the floor had a
high chance of killing you, the human race would not have survived this long.

Only bacteria that have evolved to infect humans really scare me. So in a
public place I probably would not pick something off the ground. But in my own
house, I know no one there had tuberculosis. In my life I've eaten tons of
berries and stuff that grow outside or even on the ground, and have never had
a problem.

------
StavrosK
I don't understand how someone can think this is true. Like, what, you drop
your toast with jam on the floor, pick it up in a second, the jam is full of
hairs/dust/debris and you figure it's fine?

~~~
tbrake
No, no one thinks that way with regards to any kind of food item with
stickiness and the 5 second rule.

The thought revolves around dry foods and the (mistaken) impression they're
unlikely to accumulate any kind of debris and dust. Peanuts, pretzels, etc.

~~~
thomasahle
That's my impression too. You explain the rule to children, so they can pick
up peanuts they drop on the floor, but don't go eating peanuts they find
dropped by other people a long time ago.

~~~
rantanplan
Your logic has many bugs.

What's wrong with just explaining that they shouldn't eat stuff from the
ground. Period?

~~~
coldtea
> _What 's wrong with just explaining that they shouldn't eat stuff from the
> ground. Period?_

Wasting food for no good reason. And making them paranoid about germs.

~~~
rantanplan
That makes sense(especially about the germs paranoia).

~~~
coldtea
The way I see it, if they're too small, you need to watch them anyway, or else
they will put everything on their mouth, not just dropped food.

If they are over that, they're smart enough to understand that they don't eat
jelly sandwitch off of the floor, or something they dropped in a public
street. But for a casual hard food stuff they dropped on the kitchen floor or
living room etc, they can sweep it and eat it -- and get some germ resistance
too.

E.g.:

 _Just as a baby 's brain needs stimulation, input, and interaction to develop
normally, the young immune system is strengthened by exposure to everyday
germs so that it can learn, adapt, and regulate itself, notes Thom McDade,
PhD, associate professor and director of the Laboratory for Human Biology
Research at Northwestern University.

Exactly which germs seem to do the trick hasn't yet been confirmed. But new
research offers clues.

In a recent study, McDade's team found that children who were exposed to more
animal feces and had more cases of diarrhea before age 2 had less incidence of
inflammation in the body as they grew into adulthood.

Inflammation has been linked to many chronic adulthood illnesses, such as
heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's.

"We're moving beyond this idea that the immune system is just involved in
allergies, autoimmune diseases, and asthma to think about its role in
inflammation and other degenerative diseases," McDade says. "Microbial
exposures early in life may be important… to keep inflammation in check in
adulthood."_ (WebMD)

or:

[http://news.ubc.ca/2016/08/10/why-your-kids-should-play-
in-t...](http://news.ubc.ca/2016/08/10/why-your-kids-should-play-in-the-dirt/)

------
dec0dedab0de
I thought it was the 5 minute rule. Or the "if you see food on the floor, and
it wasn't there yesterday, it's good" rule.

~~~
balabaster
Okay food that wasn't there yesterday is pushing the limits of comfort :D

------
shlant
Psssshhhh Mythbusters busted that years ago:

[http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/five-
se...](http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/five-second-rule-
minimyth/)

~~~
leereeves
Some people won't believe it unless a professor says so.

------
overcast
My philosophy is that I just don't waste food. Has nothing to do with "five
second" rules. If I just spent time making an amazing sandwich, and it drops
on the kitchen floor mostly intact. I'm sure as shit eating it. Obviously
gloppy sauces, and subway tunnels, I'm not going to scrape off the ground. For
the rest, that's why we have immune systems.

------
pjc50
It's a social convention not a piece of 'folk physics'. You know it's dirty
but you don't have to explicitly say that you don't care.

------
mbostleman
I wasn't aware that anyone took the "Five Second Rule" seriously. I thought
everyone knew it was a sarcastic joke.

------
EA
Before we had kids, if a bite of the most delectable piece of grilled steak
touched the surface of our kitchen table, I would not eat that piece of steak.
In my mind, it was contaminated and a great risk to eat.

Now that we've got kids, I will eat that same piece of steak even if it falls
on the floor. There's just so much good food on our floor now. Goldfish,
Cheez-Its, bananas, etc.

Perhaps marginally related, our kids are the healthiest in their classes.

~~~
strictnein
> "Now that we've got kids, I will eat that same piece of steak even if it
> falls on the floor"

... after the kids have taken a couple of bites of it and the dog sniffed at
it. At least in my world. But I draw the line at the dog actually taking a
bite from it.

~~~
tmp-20150107
On that note, a friend of mine (unknowingly) used water he thought was clean,
but that came from a glass my cat had been drinking from, to dissolve heroin
for injecting. The resulting infection nearly caused him to lose his leg - the
lab analysis of the wound revealed the infection was caused by cat-saliva
bacteria.

Anyway, just saying there are dangers from pets and allowing them to share
your environment. Although, I let my cat take bites out of my food sometimes,
and that seems OK so far.

~~~
dragonwriter
> On that note, a friend of mine (unknowingly) used water he thought was
> clean, but that came from a glass my cat had been drinking from, to dissolve
> heroin for injecting. The resulting infection nearly caused him to lose his
> leg - the lab analysis of the wound revealed the infection was caused by
> cat-saliva bacteria.

> Anyway, just saying there are dangers from pets and allowing them to share
> your environment.

While that's true, the _particular_ dangers from injecting cat saliva are
usually pretty minor (not low harm, just low probability: you mostly run into
them if you get bitten by a cat so that it draws blood, and you deal with them
by treating that -- rare -- event as an emergency requiring immediate
attention.)

The real danger revealed by the incident you describe is using poor
cleanliness standards when injecting drugs (in this case, recreational, but
that's irrelevant to the hazard, though its probably a lot more common with
recreational drug use than otherwise). You don't use water that you merely
"think" is clean for any purpose associated with injection, whether its
cleaning anything used in the process or, worse, actually injecting.

> Although, I let my cat take bites out of my food sometimes, and that seems
> OK so far.

You probably shouldn't, though ingesting material contaminated with cat saliva
its still probably much safer than injecting it.

------
cafard
Next up: "Stepping on Cracks Not Injurious to Mothers' Spines."

------
roddux
I was under the impression that this was common knowledge? I knew it as the
3-second rule.

~~~
petepete
Varies depending on the floor type, I believe.

~~~
VLM
On speed of pet dog. In Y seconds either the dog has determined it to be
edible and its gone, or its inedible and should be tossed in the trash.

~~~
dingaling
Or speed of toddler. We have cascading rules in our house: anything that hits
the floor is his within three seconds or else it defaults to daddy, who has
the remaining two seconds before the dog makes his move.

Dinner-time incidents can turn violent quite quickly...

~~~
VLM
LOL DnD style roll for initiative, sorry, Spot, your D20 rolled a 7 and the
toddler got a natural 20 so ...

------
praptak
I have strong anecdotal evidence that 'Five Second Rule' does not work on cat
hair.

~~~
6502nerdface
It's important to always rinse cat hair before consuming it.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I generally try to avoid consuming cat hair if I can... but at the point i'm
consuming cat hair, I'm not sure rinsed is better.

But on second read, I'm guessing you meant to rinse _off_ the cat hair?

------
pantulis
Well today I just dropped my cigarette to the street floor. I hesitated to
pick it up but hey, it can't be worse than smoking itself.

------
benlambert
The question is not whether or not the food picks up bacteria, but how likely
the bacteria is to endanger our health (and how likely a deficiency of
bacterial exposure caused by being too careful is to endanger our health).

------
tomp
I always thought this was only a joke. I guess we've reached peak science.

------
DrSayre
I either heard about this article or read this article a few days ago... Which
got me to thinking, did people actually think the 5 second rule was a real
thing?

------
pmontra
Common knowledge is: if food falls on the floor and survives the impact you
pick it up quickly, wash it, it's ok. If you find it after hours you trash it.

------
Shivetya
so while gummy bears are least likely to gather germs, how about hard candy?
also, what are the differences compared to your hands? what about a communal
candy jar or shared food space?

while I understand the five second rule is just some silly fun I am still not
convinced that much else is better. unless your using a completely sanitary
environment with sterilized equipment you will always get some bacteria

------
S_A_P
This study has been done a million times before, at the jr high and high
school level and I thought everyone just kind of knew this already.

------
jmulho
The article did not provided much useful information about food born illness.
Watermelon picks up more bacteria than a gummy bear when dropped on the floor.
That is obvious. A couple of things that would be much more helpful to point
out: 1) your kitchen floor is much less likely to be coated with salmonella if
you avoid bringing raw chicken carcasses into your house, and 2) a major
factor in the severity of food born illness is dose. It is much safer, for
example, to pick up a piece of watermelon from the kitchen floor ant eat it
immediately than it is to pick it up and toss it in a salad that you are
taking to a picnic, giving any bacteria that was picked up hours to multiply
at moderate temperatures before being eaten.

------
alimbada
Sad that someone had to do a study to find out something that people should
know through common sense.

On a related note, who cares? Kids eat mud and it doesn't kill them; a bit of
food that fell on the floor that might have a speck of dust on it is unlikely
to kill us.

------
SFJulie
I wonder how human beings from centuries ago (and actual animals) have been
able to survive without our clean like a lab environment?

Would it be possible that we overstate quite a bit the danger of everything?

I prefer my beer, cheeses non pasteurised and I prefer raw milk (after being
boiled). And I think the food coming from puritans victorian inspired
countries taste blend like the catholic religion.

Most unhealthy illegal (by brits laws) traditional french cooking I have eaten
from Québec was tasting like real fucking good FOOD.

Hail to the artisinal food! fear not the propaganda from industrial food
processors (unilever, procter&gamble, lactalis, nestlé ....)

Be curious, fear not (except if you are pregnant) and resist the messages of
fear.

~~~
laksjd
Short answer: They didn't survive. IIRC a significant portion of all humans
born in past centuries simply died as infants/children, usually from things
that are trivially preventable today with basic hygiene, good nutrition and
antibiotics/vaccines.

Humanity as a species obviously survived because people simply had _a lot_ of
children to compensate the high mortality rates.

~~~
SFJulie
well, I beg to differ, and quite a lot.

I am a mover educated with a master in physics.

My father is a physician.

a Physician - physicist talk looks like this :

Dad, medical studies are not science ; for instance fat are goods, then bad
then good again.

Son, Newton laws have been proven wrong by Einstein

Dear dad, Newton laws are still valid in the right domain, something proven
wrong may be proven wrong at the edge but not in its core, if medecine was
science, fat would always be good most of the time, except when ...

Yes, but we medics invented meta analysis that made the science better

You are mainly comparing apple and potatoes without blinking, and you are
surprised the results of your studies are hardly reproducible.

Long story short; hygienists are leading medical science based on their
religious believes (like Pasteur with alcohol) and believes are hardly a good
way of leading studies, and I am used to live every day with a tenant of as
soft science as psychology/philosophy/history that has a diabete type II for
believing in the BS of his fellow «scientific» colleagues, and I do not know
if I am angry or laughing.

------
kyriakos
They need a study to figure this one out?

------
fowlerpower
The two second rule still applies though.

------
gcatalfamo
I refuse to read the article. It can't be true someone believed that to a
point a study had to be made.

------
blowski
See also:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21945313](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21945313)

------
CapitalistCartr
Its absolutely true. I've already decided and I'm teaching my grandkids that,
regardless of what Nana says.

------
michalskop
Interestingly, I have never heard about such a rule (being from Europe; is it
probably a US-thing?)

------
kahrkunne
Guess I'm gonna be eating stuff that's been on the floor for longer now... ;-)

------
danilocesar
OMFG, there's a study for that....

------
sickbeard
lol, do people really believe that bugs are going "hold up! wait 5 seconds
before attacking!?"

~~~
overcast
I think the idea here is that a significant enough number to get you sick,
haven't had a chance to set up shop. We eat germs all day, it's when we get
too much at once that there is an issue.

------
CoryG89
Also in breaking news:

Stepping on Sidewalk Cracks Does _Not_ Break Your Mother's Back

~~~
nommm-nommm
Nor is the floor lava.

~~~
anotheryou
Better safe than sorry! I'm not touching that! _leaps from chair to chair_

------
balabaster
Er... Please tell me tax money wasn't wasted on this study. We all joke about
it, but come on, are you really telling me someone wasted money studying this?
We all know germ transfer is fairly immediate. My whole family spends much of
our time filthy from living on and operating a farm, and I n your average
shoes off household, you're less likely to get sick eating something that just
fell on the floor than you are to get sick. That's not to say you won't get
sick, it's also not to say that what you catch won't be fatal, but really...
we all laugh and joke and yell "5 second rule!" before knowingly taking our
lives in our own hands and guess what? So far, we're still all here and so far
we spend a lot less time sick than many people we know.

We know the 5 second rule is bullshit, we don't need a study to tell us that,
we're not idiots. Some people are into adrenaline sports and driving
wrecklessly, we play 5 second rule Russian roulette. It's good for your immune
system, until it kills you.

~~~
lekeve
> We know the 5 second rule is bullshit, we don't need a study to tell us
> that, we're not idiots.

We may not be idiots... but there are plenty of idiots out there who believe
this.

~~~
balabaster
Plenty enough for me to get down voted for that comment :D

