Coming back for (five) seconds - The Five Second Rule

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I can't believe some people - I only recently caught up with the supposed Five Second Rule and it is just bizarre.

In essence, it says that if you drop something on the floor, you have five seconds where it is safe to pick the food up. It implies that bacteria wont hop onto the food in that time.

Sure.

Now, if it is a crisp (above) there will be minimum contact with the floor and most respectable bacteria would not worry about trying to live on a crisp anyway.

But what if it is a swab the surgeon is going to use on (in!) you in an operation? Still so sanguine?

The more sloppy the food, the more likelihood of bacteria hopping on board as it makes better contact with the floor.

But there are some provisos:

1. If the food is really sloppy it will leave a layer on the floor and there will not be much or any transfer onto the food.

2. The other issue is the one of what is known as the infectious dose. Sure some bacteria will get on the food but there will not be enough to make you sick unless you put it somewhere to grow the numbers a bit. eg too it into the salad you are making for lunch in three hours time.

3. What about interesting things like worm eggs from your dog, cat, hamster? (Erk!)

A troublesome crystal

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A while ago we were talking about kidney stones. One of the variety of things that kidney stones can be comprised of is Struvite. To the chemically inclined, it is ammonium magnesium phosphate.

But today I want to mention one of struvite's other incarnations.

Tinned fish.

Struvite crystals will grow in tinned fish, especially salmon. Looking for all the world like pieces of windscreen glass after a crash, the crystals will come in for testing as "glass found in a tin of fish".

But it is not glass. And it is not harmful.

Should you swallow some it will dissolve in your gastric juices.
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A non-cancer mouse death.

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One neatly sliced mouse. Too much bread killed him.
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