sabrinathecat
Explorer
I wouldn't apply it to a certain restaurant I used to work in, either. Ok, not to restaurants in general, but definitely not that one!
Five second rule
Homicidal_Squirrel
Adventurer
When I was younger I worked in a supermarket's deli section. I wouldn't apply it to that either. I also stopped eating deli meats after working there, but that's another story.
Zander
Explorer
The 5 second rule is a myth. No amount of contact between food and a contaminated surface is safe however fleeting. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/homehygiene/Pages/does-the-five-second-rule-really-work.aspx
Kramodlog
Naked and living in a barrel
Well duh.
Zander
Explorer
No, why?
When it comes to food safety, it's better to use the worst case scenario, not the best. As most people don't know how contaminated a surface that food has landed on is, it's safer to test the hypothesis with a highly contaminated surface than a lightly contaminated one.
If the experiment had used two conditions, highly and lightly contaminated, and found the 5 second rule to be true of the light level of contamination, but not the heavy, it wouldn't be very helpful in many mundane situations where the degree of contamination is unknown.
And judging by the number of people who think the 5 second rule is true (including some in this thread), it isn't obvious to many that no amount of contact is safe.
Kramodlog
Naked and living in a barrel
I have a pretty good idea of how clean my condo floor is (notice I didn't mention the garage walls).
Thing is, floors and eaven toilets are pretty lean places. Sponges, blenders, door knobs are the real dirty ones.
We do not know how many people eat stuff that feel on their floor, but I'm gonna go say a lot and you seem to agree, shouldn't there be more people dying/getting ill from food poisoning?
Zander
Explorer
Careful! While the density of bacterial contamination may be higher in some places than others (a fact that is sometimes made in TV ads for cleaning products), the concentration of different species and varieties of bacteria is very different (a point I have never seen made in an ad for a cleaning product). The kinds that one finds in a toilet are generally much more dangerous if ingested than the kinds one finds on a kitchen counter.
More? There are far too many already. In any given year in the UK, a country with fairly good food hygiene standards, roughly 11% of people over 16 years old report getting food poisoning and roughly 700 people die from conditions that are very likely the result of food poisoning. I don't know what the figures are for Canada and other industrialised countries, but they're probably (proportionately) similar.
Kramodlog
Naked and living in a barrel
I didn't mention kitchen counters. Check it out. Toilets vs kitchen sponge. You'll be surprised which is more sanitary.
Food poisoning is a bit dramatic for a name. Just having trouble digesting or a slight diarrhea can be caused by food poisoning.
700 is pretty low. 0.000011% of the UK's population. The flu kills more people each year. How many died because they ate food they dropped on the floor? I'm a bit sketical the number is above 1.
Zander
Explorer
No, indeed you didn't mention kitchen counters. I did for illustrative purposes. So does the site you linked to.
No, I won't. I'm already familiar with those findings.
It is precisely because "food poisoning" sounds "dramatic" that I doubt many people would attribute mild digestive conditions to it.
If eating food that has fallen on the floor has caused even a small number of deaths, isn't that reason enough not to do it?
If something could kill you that you could easily avoid, you probably should. Very few people are killed by poisonous snakes in the UK. When I went on a camping holiday with friends in the UK, they came across a snake and were teasing it before I caught up with them. I suggested they shouldn't bait the snake because a) it's cruel and b) one species of snake in the UK is venomous. Setting aside the cruelty issue for the nonce, I didn't say: "Oh sure, go ahead. No one has died from a wild snake bite in this country since 1975, so tease it all you like."
Kramodlog
Naked and living in a barrel
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