Science Says the 5 Second Rule is a Lie But We Shouldn't Care

Nothing will stop me from eating a slice of pizza that rolled around in a pile of mud for five seconds, because its pizza and I love pizza more than life itself. But big bad scientists are trying to tell us that that’s bad for my body.

As Gizmodo writes, “According to a team at Rutgers University in the US, the cross contamination process can begin in under a second…The ‘five-second rule’ is a significant oversimplification of what actually happens when bacteria transfer from a surface to food. Bacteria can contaminate instantaneously.”

The process behind the study was fairly simple and they discovered that the wetter the object the more contaminated it will be. Yahoo explains, “The scientists tested four surfaces — stainless steel, ceramic tile, wood, and carpet; and four different foods — watermelon, bread, bread and butter, and gummy sweets. They also looked at four different contact times — less than one second, five, 30, and 300 seconds — and measured bacteria contamination for each. Watermelon had the most contamination, while gummy sweets had the least, suggesting that transfer of bacteria from surfaces to food is affected most by moisture.”

All of this is nice, but nothing will make me let that perfectly contaminated half a burger stay on the floor. Long live the five second rule.