I could have sworn we covered a story about this years ago, but I couldn’t find it again on our site so I only must have read about it. Yahoo Life, which has so many fun stories, has a new analysis of whether the five second rule – whereby you can safely eat food five seconds after it touches the ground – is accurate. The piece is based on some older studies and new expert quotes that this isn’t true, sadly, since food gets contaminated right away. Apparently the five second rule originated with Genghis Khan! According to my five seconds of Google research, this is true-ish.

The five-second rule refers to eating food dropped on the floor after quickly picking it back up. However, Kristen Nauss, MS, MBA, RD, SNS, registered dietitian and founder of Buying School Food, says this “rule” is actually an old myth.

Nauss explains that the idea behind the five-second rule is generally believed to have started by Genghis Khan, the founder and ruler of the Mongolian Empire in the thirteen century. At the time, if food dropped in his banquet hall, he would decide whether the food could be eaten.

As time passed, Khan’s rule became a common household practice. When ready-to-eat foods are dropped onto the floor for five seconds (or less), the assumption is that time is too short for the food to become contaminated by microorganisms, thus making it safe to eat.

Inn reality, though, it can take less than five seconds to contaminate the dropped food with harmful bacteria, such as Salmonella or E.coli, according to Lisa Yakas, Senior Account Manager, Product Certification, Global Food Division of NSF.

Several research studies have debunked the five-second rule, including a 2021 study from the Journal of Food Protection. That study found that bacteria from the grocery store floor was instantly transferred to the produce when the produce items dropped onto the floor. Yes, instantly.

The floors of public spaces are certainly riskier, but that does not mean the floors of your home are germ-free either. Just because your kitchen floor is spotless, bacteria and other pathogens could still be present that cannot be seen by the naked eye.

Yakas adds, “No matter where you are, the floor can contain bacteria that can come into contact with the food and potentially make you sick.”

The longer the food comes in contact with the floor, the more bacteria is transferred to the item. A research study from 2016 also noted that more germs are transferred from the floor to the food if the food is moisture-rich, like watermelon or cucumber.

> [From Yahoo!]

Do you remember at the beginning of the pandemic when we were washing all our groceries, cleaning our houses thoroughly and not even using reusable grocery bags? I think about that a lot when I hear someone coughing indoors with no masks in sight, but I digress.

I knew this on some level and am not regularly eating food off the ground, 90% of the time I throw it out, but I will admit to rinsing it off sometimes. Things with skins and shells are OK as the articles mentions, but if it’s just a small piece I’ll throw it out. Now that I have a dog I throw almost everything out though! I’ll never forget the time I was watching my friends’ five-year-old daughter at the playground and I snatched a piece of food off the ground immediately after she dropped it, assuming she’d just eat it. I have a son that girl’s age and he would regularly do this. The girl and her mom looked at me surprised and the mom said “she would never eat food off the ground, she knows better.” I taught my son not to eat dropped food (please ignore the beginning of this paragraph) but he would just shrug and do it anyway. I hope I’m not reaching Kristen Bell levels of disclosure about my son, but that bar is truly high.

photos credit: Ekaterina Bolovtsova, Anna Shvets and Sklei on Pexels