Do you eat dropped food?

Frankly, if I dropped my food, I would discard it with a heavy heart but during a meeting a few years back, a boss did just that and told me there's this 2 second-rule. The food is safe to eat if you pick it up within 2 seconds of dropping it. GASP!

Today, Forbes told me there was a 5 second-rule. GASPS x 5! Anyways, there's this research by Aston University, UK that sort of tested this theory...

For the study, Anthony Hilton, a professor of Microbiology, and his students considered a variety of foods – toast, pasta, cookie, and a sticky candy – to see how much bacteria (E. coli andStaphylococcus) they attracted when allowed contact with the floor. They allowed the food to lie on various types of flooring – carpet, laminate, and tiles – for 3 seconds to 30 seconds. 

Not surprisingly, the longer the food was allowed commune with the floor, the more bacteria it accumulated. And the surfaces differed in how likely they were to transfer the bacteria, with carpeting being the least likely, and tiled surfaces and laminate the most likely. “We have found evidence that transfer from indoor flooring surfaces is incredibly poor with carpet actually posing the lowest risk of bacterial transfer onto dropped food,” said Hilton in a news release. 

The moister the food, the more likely it was to pick up bacteria. Again, an interesting but not surprising result.

Still, I wouldn't want to consume anything that fell on the floor or any other dirty surfaces. Would you?

via Forbes.