5-second rule

Everyone has heard of the 5-second rule right? If not, you’re about to! The idea is that if food has been dropped on the floor but was picked up within 5 seconds, it is safe for eating. A couple of studies have looked into this! One group studied how fast bacteria transfer onto toast, pasta, biscuit and a sticky sweet, whilst the other studied similar scenarios in watermelon, bread, bread and butter and gummy candy. Both studies also looked at different floor surface types.
While the time of contact is found to be important to the transfer of the bacteria in some cases, in others contamination was reported to occur almost instantaneously. So while the rule may work some of the time, it might be better to play it safe next time you consider eating something off the floor!
Most unexpectedly, more than one study found that carpet floor has very low bacterial transfer rate! Here are some other interesting outcomes from surveys on the subject:
– 87% of the people would eat food that have dropped on the floor. Are you one of them?
– Woman are more likely to eat things off the floor
– Cookies and candies are more likely to get picked up and eaten than 

Further reading:
http://aem.asm.org/content/early/2016/08/15/AEM.01838-16.full.pdf+html?ijkey=FLERGaGuAW0EM&keytype=ref&siteid=asmjournals
http://news.aces.illinois.edu/news/if-you-drop-it-should-you-eat-it-scientists-weigh-5-second-rule
http://www.aston.ac.uk/news/releases/2014/march/five-second-food-rule-does-exist/