Food waste is something we should strive to avoid. According to Wikipedia, wasted food (raw or cooked) costs the U.K. £10.2 billion annually ($ 15.5 billion). Looking at only those foods that are never touched or open before spoiling or disposal, the U.S. wastes 15 percent, which adds up to $ 43 billion in food waste each year. You’d think the five second rule – where dropped food is assumed to be fit to eat so long as it is scooped off the floor in less than five seconds – would be encouraged by economists. However, a Clemson University study by food scientist Paul Dawson points toward discarding the five second rule like yesterday’s scraps, reports the Chicago Tribune.
Phase out the five second rule for zero tolerance to be safe
Considering that salmonella and other bacteria can live for up to four weeks on dry surfaces and instantly contaminate food on contact, maybe Dawson is on to something. The Connecticut College study that used apple slices and Skittles is Dawson’s main opposer. The apple took a minute to become infected, when the Skittles took four minutes more. Reduced food waste and improved childhood immune systems were connected to the five second rule in yet one more study, this time at the University of Maine.
Mind the location, not a time interval
The five second rule is pseudo-science, claim Dawson and supporting researchers. A kitchen or bathroom floor will typically be home to numerous more harmful germs that cause illness, according to numerous scientific studies. However, if a bagel drops on the sidewalk, it’s OK to pick it up and brush it off. Public sidewalks can indeed be less germ friendly than kitchens, as raw meat juice tends not to appear there.
Five seconds with your mind
The Tribune points to research that shows that the risk people take with recovering dropped food is typically related to how badly they want what they dropped. Thus, sugary snacks tend to be recovered more than vegetables. And here’s food for thought – studies related to Dawson’s work found that women were more likely to pick up and continue eating dropped food than their male counterparts.
Read more on this topic here
featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealthclub/2010/07/debunking-the-fivesecond-dropped-food-rule.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_waste
No comments:
Post a Comment