Survey reveals what majority of people think of eating food off the floor
We’ve all done it before: you are about to take a bite of that delicious piece of food in your hand and then it falls on the floor.
But how long can you leave food to sit on the floor and still safely eat it? Does the five-second rule work?
It seems it’s not just about how long it stays there, but what surface you drop it on.
The topic is the latest subject up for discussion in Britain is a Nation Of…. – a new podcast by Yahoo News UK.
In the latest episode, which unpacks all things food, Head of News at Yahoo UK Stuart Henderson joins editor Matilda Long and Kimberley Wilson, former Great British Bake Off finalist and Chartered Psychologist.
According to YouGov Omnibus statistics shared on the podcast, only one in three Brits would refuse to eat something that has fallen onto the floor.
And when it comes to the tipping point of when people see it as acceptable to eat something from the floor, it seems that five seconds is ‘the rule’.
According to the poll, when people were asked how long they would leave something on the floor and still eat it, a third (32 per cent) said they wouldn’t eat it at all, but the next highest proportion was 16 per cent of people who said they would leave it for five seconds.
One in 10 (11 per cent) people would eat something that had been on the floor for more than 10 seconds.
Can you eat food off the floor?
“What we basically need to know is, is it okay and why do we do it?’ Stuart Henderson said.
Referring to research carried out by Anthony Hilton, Professor of Microbiology at Aston University in 2014, Mr Henderson said: “He said that as long as it’s not really dirty or obviously contaminated, basically knock yourselves out.
“The two significant factors they found though were that the time is a significant factor so the actual amount of time you leave it is relevant – it’s not like it falls on the floor and the germs either jump on or don’t jump on.
“But they also tested the type of flooring and this was the most surprising thing.
“They said that bacteria was least likely to transfer from carpeted surfaces and most likely to transfer from laminate or tiled surfaces for foods that have been there for five seconds which feels really not intuitive and kind of explains, I think, why we do this.”
Mr Henderson said the reason Brits were happy to eat food that had been on the floor and could potentially risk their health was all part of ‘heuristics’ – basically coming up with a rule of thumb that allowed people to make day-to-day decisions quickly and easily.
To hear more unpacking of statistics about British people, listen to the full episode above, or download it on Apple Podcasts, Acast, or Spotify to listen while on the go.
