Important Food News: The 3-Second Rule Is A Myth

It’s time we all stopped eating food off the floor…

It’s time we all stopped eating food off the floor… the three-second rule is a myth, people. Nothing more than an urban legend, so banish it from your mind along with the popular misconception that TV damages your eyes.

Research by cleaning technology firm Kärcher has found that a third of us risk our health by eating dirty food that’s fallen on the floor.

Yup, sounds pretty familiar.

37% of us eat food that’s dropped on the kitchen floor and 38% of us eat food that’s fallen on the living room floor. I mean, it would be wasteful not to, right?

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The thing is, experts warn that potentially harmful bugs like E. coli and Salmonella stick to food in an instant - 3 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, it doesn’t matter – if the food has made contact with the floor you shouldn’t then put it in your mouth.

Ugh, sometimes knowledge is not beautiful.

These bad bacteria are ominously referred to as ‘silent killers’ because they’re invisible to the human eye and don’t have an identifiable smell either. And in even more disturbing news these bacteria can multiply from a single bacterium to several million in just seven hours. Biology is badass.

Basically, we’re going to have to get a lot better at not dropping delicious morsels on the floor. The other option is to clean our house in the rigorous manner of Monica from Friends. But the same study has also revealed that our house cleaning habits leave much to be desired.

The survey claims that 49% of us rely on a broom to clean our living spaces, and 43% of us use only an air freshener. Apparently, an awful lot of us just like to sweep dirt around the house and then disguise its noxious smell with a spritz of Alpine.

Plus, 59% of those polled waited until spotting dirt before getting out the cleaning products, and 27% use an unpleasant smell as a trigger to take action. Action being air freshener… no judgement.