I never put much clout into the five-second rule.
Something about dropping my food into a cesspool of swarming bacterial
cultures just screams unappetizing to me.
If my meal falls from the serving mechanism it becomes a non-food item
immediately, not seconds after.
This is why family pets love me.
And dogs and cats around Canada and the U.S. are going to be happy with a
new finding from Clemson University in South Carolina, according to this
month’s National Geographic.
The study found that salmonella and other strains of hazardous bacteria can
live up to four weeks on a dry surface.
Yummy.
But it’s more than the invisibles that I’m concerned about.
I grew up in the home of a crazy cat lady. My mother’s feline sympathies are
so much that it’s not that the cats live with her, it’s she who lives with
the cats – and their favourite place to lounge is the kitchen table.
Wipe it off as much as you want, I’m still not going to eat off of it. Don’t
get me wrong, I love the cats, but all they have to wash their paws is their
tongue, and I don’t even want to know what their tongues touch.
But the rule, if you choose to subscribe to it, is more about place than it
is about time.
If you drop something on the grass, it’s probably safer to eat than
something you dropped on the kitchen floor, on account of food-borne
bacteria (such as raw chicken).
But to me, if I drop something on the ground, it’s probably going to have
dirt stuck to it, and some lucky little bird is going to get far more
enjoyment out of it than I would at that point, so c’est la vie.
Obviously, 99.9 per cent of the time, there would be no harm done from
honouring the five-second rule. Just ask George Costanza who ate an eclair
out of a trash can (or rather ask Seinfeld co-creator Larry David who claims
he actually did eat an eclair out of the garbage, and wrote it into the
episode).
But I’m not one to take chances with my guts.
I’m totally open to danger – rock climbing, roller-coasters, white water
canoeing, mosh pits. I can deal with broken bones, but not bloody diarrhea.
It’s not a good conversation starter, nor does it give you war-wound
bragging rights.
For those who are adamant to follow the five-second rule, there was another
study done at Connecticut College, where two students put the five-second
rule to the test, putting apple slices and Skittles on cafeteria tables.
They found it took more than a minute for any bacteria to make the apples
their new home, and the Skittles were clean for up to five minutes.
Still, gross.