If you ever dropped a piece of food on the ground or floor, you have most likely picked it up and consumed it with no issue. People believe that it is alright and will bring no harm to your health because of the existing 5-second rule, where it is okay to consume food that you dropped as long as you picked it up within 5 seconds. But is it really?
The origin of this misconception or superstition was presumed to be from the 1960s cooking show by Julia Child, a television personality known for her cooking show called ‘The French Chef’. While people insist that they saw her dropped a lamb (chicken or turkey depending on the version of the tale) on the floor and picked it up, that story couldn’t be further from the truth. It was actually a potato pancake that fell on the stovetop and not on the floor while cooking. She placed it back on the pan and said, “But you can always pick it up. And if you are alone in the kitchen, who is going to see?”
In the Philippines, there are no accounts of the exact origin of the misconception and why people believe it. It has been a part of the Filipino culture for so long that no one really knows what influenced it and how it started. One of the earliest pieces of research about the “5-second rule” can be attributed to Jillian Clarke, a senior at the time at Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, and was published in September 2003.
The research entitled “If You Drop It, Should You Eat It? Scientists Weigh In on the 5-Second Rule” was conducted using micro-organisms, in their case E. coli. The bacteria were able to transfer from the tile to the food within 5 seconds but it did not state how contaminated the food was.
Another research from Clemson University by P. Dawson, I. Han, M. Cox, C. Black, and L. Simmons titled “Residence time and food contact time effects on transfer of Salmonella Typhimurium from tile, wood and carpet: testing the five-second rule” determined that the number of bacteria transferred from the surface to the food did not depend on the amount of time but with the number of bacteria and the type of surface. Carpeted flooring can have up to 1% of bacteria transferred onto the food, and wooden or tiled flooring has the possibility of transferring up to 40%-70%.
While these studies proved that the 5-second rule somewhat carries the truth, it is vital to be careful with the food that you are consuming because eating contaminated food products might result in illnesses such as food poisoning, salmonella and contracting E. coli. It can cause symptoms like severe stomach cramps, diarrhea (often bloody), and vomiting.
We should all be mindful especially now with the current pandemic.
Discussion about this post