Do you follow the 'Five Second Rule'?

[azmouse]

http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/124/115555.htm?pagenumber=1

In households, restaurant kitchens, and almost anywhere people prepare or consume food, you'll occasionally hear someone call out "five-second rule." Whether it's uttered as a way for the speaker to let others know he's civilized, as an excuse to salvage expensive food, or as an incantation to ward off sickness, the meaning is the same: If food hits the floor and you snatch it up in less than five seconds, it's safe to eat."

Is the food really safe? Or should we throw it away or wash it off? WebMD talked to experts to find out what you should consider before swallowing this rule whole.


***

Robert Romaine first heard the five-second rule when he became a San Diego County health inspector, a job he held for more than 25 years.
"We teach students that any surface, especially floors, should not be considered clean, and any food that comes in contact with it is trash."

That includes counters that have been washed and sanitized. If the precaution sounds extreme, consider the potential for damp floors and what might be on the shoes of a worker who walked her dog or used the restroom before coming to work. Then someone lifts a carton of produce from the floor and sets it on the counter. Maybe you don't want to eat food that has fallen on that counter.

[LSK]

1. .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1z6OCRJVks

[azmouse]

8. Thanks for the laugh!!

:rofl:

[underpants]

2. Yes and the "3 AM baby" rule

that being that when my daughter cries I say to her "You aren't a 3AM baby you have nothing to cry about" meaning the commercials that run at 3AM with the kid standing in a open sewer looking for her meal.

I can't wait until my daughter is old enough to get all these wonderful jokes.

[LSK]

5. good, then she can come explain them to us

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[underpants]

9. *flicks booger*

:grr:

[LSK]

20. booger flicker

:P

[supernova]

11. You mean the Xtain Children's Fund infomercials?

Yes, those are wrenching, even more so than the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. :cry:

I feel so sorry for those babies. I just want to feed and hug them all. :cry:

[underpants]

13. Yes those are the ones

the CCF is headquartered right her in Richmond.

I really don't mean anything nasty or disrespectful about the commercials I am just trying to teach her not to whine and complain and to understand the situation she is in...the ACTUAL situation in a world view kind of way.

[supernova]

17. Aww,

she just needs to know you're there.

[supernova]

3. I do at home

since, well, I'd only be eating MY dirt. That's different. It's CLEAN dirt. :P :silly:

But for a public estabilishment that serves food, that's a HUGE no-no.

[1monster]

4. It's a three-second rule and that depends on what it falls on and what

it is that fell. If ever the faller or the fallee is wet, definitely not. If both are dry, maybe depending on just how much I want whatever the faller was.

[eyesroll]

6. In most cases, yes.

(Even though there's probably little difference between five seconds and five minutes, pathogen-wise.)

If the floor/ground is visibly gross, then no. I'm not going to dig cat litter out of an apple slice.
If it's something goopy, I'm not going to scrape it off the floor.
If someone drops a cookie or a grape, it's fair game. Chances are their hands have just as many germs on them as the floor does.

I live with a three-year-old; if we threw out everything that hit the floor, our food budget would be doubled.

[azmouse]

14. Me too.

I keep my floors fairly clean but my husband will look at me like I've just eaten a bug when I pick food that fell and eat it!
He hadn't heard of the five second rule until I explained it to him and he still thinks it's gross. To each his own I guess but I don't have any problem with it.

[Midlodemocrat]

7. Depends on how recently I had the floor washed.

I just found a new product for the hardwood floor in the kitchen that does a wonderful job. I shudder to think what the other stuff wasn't getting up.

[Initech]

10. Hell no! I'm not afraid of germs...

If I drop food on the floor, I pick it up and eat it! Even if I'm in Calcutta, in the poor section.

[azmouse]

15. They just add extra flavor!!

:9

[Initech]

21. Exactly!

[redqueen]

12. Sure do.

First of all... Nietzsche's quote.

Second of all... was raised by a depression era parent. That whole "waste nothing... NOTHING!" mentality is really hard to shake. Really really.

Third of all... I ate out of trash cans for a while. By comparison, something falling on a relatively clean surface is not gonna get wasted unless someone I really don't wanna hear it from is around.

[China_cat]

16. Mythbusters did a segment on that

tested all kinds of stuff and found that it didn't matter...unless your food landed on the toilet seat, it was contaminated.

Weird, but yes, the toilet seat was the CLEANEST of all the surfaces they tested.

[YankeyMCC]

18. I do

at home at least. But not due to thinking no germs are there. Someone else mentioned the Mythbuster's ep that showed 5 sec rule didn't help in terms of germs all other things being equal. :)

I just figure I can tough out anything that the food picks up in less than 5 seconds at my house.

It does depend on what it is though..I might wash off a steak or something.

[Marie26]

19. Religiously. nt