The Five Second Rule, Are you Going to Eat that, Reaction.

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Author: Michael S

Abc News, Five-Second Rule: Are You Going to Eat That? Found on Yahoo News, Link to: http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=49750&cl=3022850&ch=61492&src=news

The News starts off talking about if food touches the floor is it ok to eat? Two Senior College Students from Connecticut College did a Scientific Experiment on how long it actually takes for food that touches the floor to become covered in Bacteria.

What they did, First they would drop the food on the floor, then they would swab it and try to grow bacteria in a petree dish.

The study showed that it took approximately thirty seconds for bacteria to grow on wet food and sixty seconds for bacteria to grow on dry food. This would mean that the Five-Second Rule actually should be considered the Thirty-Second Rule, or the sixty-second rule.

This consistently begs the question, If it touches the ground for 5 seconds then is it OK to eat? Studies show yes, and I say no.

My reasons for saying know are not unlike the reasons above except that we didn't just drop food on the floor, we took cotton swabs and rubbed them on the floor in one striking motion as to just test the floor for possible bacteria.

First off, this was in Cocoa, Florida, a warm little town which I'm sure promotes bacteria growth much easier then in a cooler environment. Second, we never dropped food on the floor then swabbed it, we actually just swabbed the floor. The reasons for not swabbing the food is because two transfers, from the floor to the food to the swab don't pick up exactly what your are going to be putting in your mouth.

One Swab directly from the floor for less then one-second should produce more efficient results, and display exactly what is on the floor.

Our Experiment:

We took cotton swabs and swabbed the Bathroom Floor, Inside and outside the Dumpster, Carpet, Tile, Toilet, and Sink. Every Swab was swiped once across the object in question for less then one second as if you were painting a small one inch line.

The Test:

We took those swabs and rubbed them on petree dishes, places the growth accelerator and allowed the bacteria to grow in a controlled environment.

Results:

All Items developed some bacteria, but the dumpster actually developed the lest and the second least was the toilet seat. The worst was the Carpet. These results go to show that you actually are picking up bacteria when you drop something on the floor, and just testing the floor at a college in Connecticut is probably not the best place to do a test as they probably mop those floors every day.

The the Five-Second Rule should be Abolished and considered the NO-Second Rule

But the question still arises, How long would you leave food on the floor and still eat it?