“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas


Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Who eats food off the floor?


We've all seen friends or family drop food on the floor, scoop it up really fast, look around to see who's watching, and stuff it in their mouths anyway. The question is, can you really eat food off the floor and not expose yourself to who-knows-what kind of germs and does the 3 or 5 second rule really make a difference? 

I have a modified 3-sec rule in my house. Dropped food may be blown on and then eaten within 3 seconds, if and only if, it is dry, e.g. popcorn, pretzels, crackers, M&M's, or chips, etc. Wet food that is dropped on the floor is immediately classified as waste and only an idiot would eat it at that point. Cheese, pizza, soft chocolate, fruit, or anything that you'd call "sticky" falls within the broad definition of "wet" in my book. 

I'm in favor of eating food off the floor under those conditions because I think our society is too obsessed with a germ-free environment. We never let our immune systems do any work because we've sterilized our whole world. I believe this has contributed to the explosion of ridiculous food allergies we've seen as well as made people get sick easier and sicker when they do get exposed. Doctors are all too eager to prescribe antibiotics to patients who probably only have a virus, because a patient who's too dumb to know the difference doesn't want to be told to go home and "ride it out" for a few days. 

So feel free to eat dropped dry food off the floor as long as it doesn't fall in anything nasty and the floors are relatively clean to begin with.   

4 comments:

David said...

Mythbusters examined the 5 second rule on one of their shows. I don't remember their verdict.

Ed said...

I'm sure germs jump onto your dropped food immediately, but how harmful can they really be if they live in your house with you 24/7?

I don't worry too much about that.

Ed said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
david said...

I eat off the floor all the time. It's better, and cheaper, than probiotics!