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from the if-I-lick-it,-it-belongs-to-me dept.
Food that has been dropped on the floor is usually safe to eat under the so-called "five-second rule", a scientist has said.
Germ expert Professor Anthony Hilton, from Aston University, said that although retrieving these morsels can never be completely without risk, there is little to be concerned about if the food is only there momentarily.
Professor Hilton will be demonstrating how the five-second rule works at The Big Bang Fair – a celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) for young people – which opens on Wednesday at the NEC in Birmingham.
He said: "Eating food that has spent a few moments on the floor can never be entirely risk-free. Obviously, food covered in visible dirt shouldn't be eaten, but as long as it's not obviously contaminated, the science shows that food is unlikely to have picked up harmful bacteria from a few seconds spent on an indoor floor."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Sunday April 02 2017, @12:19AM (8 children)
here's how we test our fresh biochem students in the lab.
Take a sterile dish of media - expose to air for 10 seconds. Seal and place in fermentation unit (38C) for a few days.
More points if they can identify the species by their cultures as they grow.
If you're immune system is functioning, you may not get ill.
Depending on the dose, you may not get ill.
But as soon as a surface has been touch it is contaminated - all that varies is the amount.
It's laughable this is considered science.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 02 2017, @12:53AM
Uh, better not breathe any air then? Or maybe a little contamination is something our body evolved to deal with in most cases... If you think your body is or should be as sterile as that media, you should probably think again. If you think the peanut you dropped was sterile in the first place, same deal.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday April 02 2017, @02:14AM (4 children)
I don't know about the validity of TFA, but I'm also not sure of the relevance of your point. People here aren't dropping food and then letting it ferment for "a few days" in ideal growth conditions BEFORE consumption. Instead, presumably most are consuming soon, and only certain toxic bacteria can survive digestion and then grow enough (beginning with low dose) to cause problems.
I guess my point would be that it's probably more likely to get sick from food that was inadvertently placed on a kitchen counter or sink or cutting board or dirty plate or other more reasonable "food surface" than the floor, since many kitchen surfaces can be contaminated with stuff leading to cross-contamination. Personally, unless the floor is filthy, I'd be less worried about that than most actual food prep surfaces in a lot of people's kitchens (where you might actually be growing stuff like in your media dish).
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Sunday April 02 2017, @03:05PM (1 child)
My point is that 10 seconds capture from the air is sufficient to contaminate a sample. And can be provably and repeatably examined. The fermentation is to make it easier to see without a microscope - you could look 1 hour later to see with a microscope....
Dosage is important - most people probably get ill when they get a large dose, hence food storage are strict.
There's contamination many foods, but in general below a certain threshold it will not injure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 02 2017, @04:46PM
So simply breathing for 10 seconds is enough to be contaminated, by that logic ?
Seriously, if you get sick just by eating a fry dropped on the floor for 5 seconds, you should probably have been eliminated by natural selections years ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 02 2017, @04:37PM (1 child)
The deal with this is the the bacteria that cause serious problems usually require time to replicate. If the food was safe prior to being dropped, it's unlikely to pick up anything particularly dangerous just by being dropped on the floor.
Also, most bacteria are just not that dangerous, for every one strain of a type of bacteria that's dangerous there's usually several others that are helpful or at least benign.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 02 2017, @04:46PM
There are too many assumptions being made. What says that you aren't dropping the food right onto a bacteria colony that's been replicating. It's not like all bacteria just sit there waiting for a piece of toast dropping on them before starting to replicate.
I can kind of see the argument about dangerous bacteria making up a minority of the bacteria strains. But I would still want to see some sort of numbers of the types of bacteria on the floor where food is dropped and quantities of each type of bacteria. If you have a dog for instance, I wouldn't want to eat anything off the floor since dogs step in their own crap and then walk around in your house.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 02 2017, @10:15AM
Exactly, once contact has been reached. The time is often too tight for anything to grow in any way that makes a difference. If there are any harmful bacteria, virus or parasites on the floor. It's already there or not at all.
And people might get say poo or spit from public areas, walk home with it under their feet. And then it gets on the floor where said food is dropped. At least parasites from animals is a viable concern. Perhaps Hepatitis from public spit is too.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday April 02 2017, @06:27PM
I remember a bio teacher going on about how he was at the school when the building opened and that trick didn't work so well but after decades of bio lab the colonies were much more interesting.
This seems highly likely. In that way I'm kinda "eh" about insane grade antiseptics because most of whats growing in my kitchen is apple cider yeast so knowing thats mostly harmless I totally want it outcompeting the E. Coli.