Food Contamination: No More 5 Second Rule!

No longer will I feel guilty for picking up a piece of freshly dropped food from my kitchen floor and putting it back on a plate!

Student Researchers at Connecticut College recently conducted experiments in the Food Bar and Dining Hall to see exactly how long it would take for wandering bacteria to be attracted to food dropped on the floor.

Long have mothers around the world lived by the five second rule- if it falls, you have five seconds to pick it up and have it still be fit for human consumption.

But the five second rule is no more!

Under the supervision of Assistant Professor Anne Bernhard, students Goettsche and Moin experimented with samples of wet foods ( apple slices) and dry foods ( skittles). The foods were left on the floor for varying amounts of time, then taken and analyzed for bacteria growth and contamination.

The results of this Dining Hall experiment yielded surprising results.

Apparently, we can all wait about 30 seconds before picking up that apple slice, and even longer for skittles! Now, there is the possibility that bacteria just do not like skittles( I cant say that I blame them), or that the candies are impervious to immediate contamination, but in this study, it took a good five minutes before any bacterial prescience was found on those little hard candies.

We no longer have to feel guilty over throwing away food that has been on the floor for more than five seconds, or guilty of serving food that has been down for more than five seconds, we simply have to get to the food before the family dog does - and in my house, thats just about thirty seconds!