Newsflash! The five-second rule is not real

There is nothing worse than dropping your mouth-watering food on the floor, unless of course you implement the five-second rule and quickly pick it up.

For years now food lovers have been using the rule to happily eat the apparently contamination-free food.

If you pick it up within five seconds it is good to go, right? Not really!

The journal for Applied and Environmental Microbiology has published a new study that reveals what hygienic freaks have known for years, eating food from the floor is not bacteria free.

In fact, food microbiologist Donald Schaffner, who works at Rutgers University, says bacteria contamination is almost instant!

Schaffner tested the five-second rule by dropping four different foods on four different surfaces, including stainless steel and a ceramic tile.

The floors were all covered with bacteria.

He dropped a slice of watermelon, plain bread, bread with butter, and strawberry gummy candy onto the surfaces for time periods of less than five seconds and up to 300 seconds.

While some of the foods got more contaminated than others (apparently carpets transfer less bacteria than tiles), bacteria were transmitted to all of them.

Of course watermelon, being a wet food, picked up the most bacteria, while the gummy candy was affected the least.

We think it is pretty safe to say that eating dropped food is not a good idea – no matter how fast you pick it up!