Once you drop a piece of food on the floor, you might just blow the surface to be sure you’ve dusted it off from germs and it’s all clean now. After all, your house is pretty clean and what’s the harm in picking it and eating it within seconds.1
The “Five Seconds Rule”
Your “five seconds rule” needs to go in the bin. You’ve been putting little microbes in your mouth every time you pick a piece of food which falls on the ground and eat it. Or is it okay to keep it to a “three seconds rule”?
Some students in dorms follow a “five minute rule”, and some are very strict against it. The harsh truth is, there are no microbes on the floor waiting for the food to fall on the floor and then pounce on it.
This World Belongs To Microbes Too
We’re literally breathing in a sea of microbes. They are almost everywhere you walk or breathe. And even if you have mopped your floor pretty well, they are still there. Technically, there are no seconds rule for this, as soon as your food is on the floor, the microbes are attached to it in nanoseconds and is contaminated. Depending on where you’ve dropped your food, you will pick up dirt and microbes along with it.
At any given time, around 9,000 different species of microbes are present in the dust of your house, which includes 7,000 different types of bacteria. Although, most of them are harmless.
Can You Lick Your Floor?
This doesn’t mean that you can pick a dropped and unwrapped candy from the sand and still blow it to eat it. You need to consider the environmental factors carefully before you apply your own seconds rule to pick food from the ground.
But several researches show that even giving a few licks to your floor or toilet seat is not going to make you sick. Again, depends on how clean is your house, or dorm. However, you ought not want to try and experiment in a world where we have a high record of poor hygiene.
How Do We Get The G-Shield On?
Certainly, there are millions and millions of pathogens out in the world, but there is no protective barrier between you and them, so there is no need to panic about germs. They are almost everywhere you lay your eyes. You will become ill even if you have not picked your food from the floor and eaten it.
But the usual rules stay where they are. If your floor is loaded with Salmonella, you will fall sick for sure, regardless for how long you food was laying there before you picked it up and put it in your mouth. A recent study found that this bacteria, if gets into your gut, can leave you with a stomach ache and the rest of the sickness follows.
Germs Have Been Our Best Friends For Long
Microorganisms have evolved a lot. They have helped us become what we are today, literally. Scientists believe that they have helped us evolve in the certain way that we have turned up to be today. A simple example, a kid who doesn’t find mud very unhygienic doesn’t mind playing in it, until the adult ideas of germs and sickness are understood by him.
Scared Of Germs? You’re In Loss
It’s believed that germophobes have poor immunity than those who are not. You cannot build your immunity by being away from germs. There are good and bad microorganisms and they all contribute to your being.
The Conclusion
So stop counting your seconds and pick that food and eat, or throw it away, it’s not gonna make you fall any more sick or make you healthy.
We don’t recommend you to lick your toilets eats and floors though.
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