Five Second Rule

The five-second rule is popular and everyone must have heard of it. Dropping food on the floor is pretty common. Dropping m&m’s on the floor always makes me angry and I try to pick it up before the five seconds are over. But is this myth actually true? Jillian Clark, a student, has tested it out. She had two types of flooring. A rough and a smooth one. She covered both with bacteria and dropped the gummy bear. As a result, fewer bacteria were transferred to the rough surface. More researchers, Robyn Miranda, and Donald Schaffner did an experiment where they dropped strawberry gummy candy, bread, watermelon, and buttered bread on steel, tile, carpet, and wood with bacteria. They left the food for five seconds to five minutes. The results showed that watermelon held the most bacteria. With this information, we can say that bacteria is still transferred even before five seconds and it is best to avoid eating it, especially if the food is sticky or wet.