Five-second rule? Try half an hour!

IT’S cheering news for parents and clumsy cooks everywhere.

The ‘five-second rule’ – namely, if you pick up dropped food very quickly it is still safe to eat – could actually be extended to as long as half an hour, say scientists.

A study suggests that if you carelessly drop some dry toast or a biscuit, you can be positively lackadaisical about picking it up.

This is because these ‘rigid’ foods will not absorb more bacteria while they are on the floor – but for softer items such as cooked pasta, the five-second rule still applies.

The team from Aston University in Birmingham found that stickier foods pulled in more bacteria the longer they were on a hard floor. They tested the theory by dropping different foods on carpet, linoleum and tiles.

On carpet it made no difference how long food was left on the floor, the researchers discovered, by measuring bacteria levels at different time intervals.

But for hard floors, it was better to pick up some foods quickly. Midget Gem sweets and cooked lasagne took on significantly more bacteria over time than dry toast or biscuits.

Professor Anthony Hilton, who will present his team’s findings at the Big Bang Fair in Birmingham, said: ‘People may not realise that dry foods, hard foods are really quite lowrisk .. Sweets and pasta tend to change their structure over time on the floor, so have more contact points for bacteria to attach to.

‘Interestingly, if you were to drop a piece of toast buttered side down, that sticky surface would undo the benefits of the rigid bread and pick up more bacteria.

‘However the chances of anyone getting ill from dropping food on the floor at home are infinitesimally small.’