THE 5 second rule.

The 5 second rule. We've all heard of this golden rule since childhood. But, in case you haven't, picture the following scenario: you are absolutely famished, so hungry that durian is starting to look yummy. You make your absolute favorite dish ever, (and i mean, ever) but alas, you're a clumsy idiot and it falls on the floor right as you're about to take a bite. What do you do?

Thankfully, your friends told you about the 5 second rule: food that has fallen on the floor is safe for ingestion if and only if it is picked up within 5 seconds of being dropped.

I'm sure that at some time in our lives, we've all lost sleep, sanity, and (possibly a healthy stomach) over the validity of the rule. In a recent article in the NYTimes, researchers at Clemson University put the age-old rule to the test. And its findings? Well, if you're a brave trooper, often if food is picked up within the allotted period, it is relatively safe for ingestion; Bacteria still attaches to the food, but it isn't enough to make you sick. So the question then arises, can we still follow the 5 second rule?

"Of course we can never know for sure how many harmful microbes there are on any surface. But we know enough now to formulate the five-second rule, version 2.0: If you drop a piece of food, pick it up quickly, take five seconds to recall that just a few bacteria can make you sick, then take a few more to think about where you dropped it and whether or not it’s worth eating."