Oops.
If your family has lived, or at least survived, by the 5-second rule, researchers at
You know the rule: If food falls to the floor and
you grab it back within 5 seconds, you can still eat it. Without, you
know, dying.
Granted, the study was funded by
which is all about disinfecting surfaces. But experiments in dropping
carrots and sippy cups on a typical floor found that germs do indeed
attach themselves within 5 seconds.
You gotta love this research: Three baby carrots
were dropped into a kitchen sink, onto a tiled floor, a carpeted floor,
a table and a countertop. There also was a control carrot, which
remained undropped. In each case, germs glommed on to the veggie in 5
seconds. The germiest culprit? The countertop, followed by carpeted
floor and the tiled floor. The wet sippy cup actually picked up the
most germs when, gulp, dropped onto a highchair tray.
The university also surveyed 500 parents, finding
that 65 percent admitted to following the 5-second rule in their home.
The bleach folks would like everyone to think about disinfecting
surfaces more often. But there also may be an argument that ingesting a
certain amount of germs helps build up our tolerance levels.
Or we could just step up our game.
A 3-second rule, anyone?
—
(c) 2010, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
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