Watch it, butterfingers.

September 6, 2003 12:39 PM

Five second rule? There is no five second rule.
posted by SuzySmith (37 comments total)

Bah! Eating germs builds tolerance and whatnot.

<eats cookie>
posted by kayjay at 12:45 PM on September 6, 2003

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
posted by crunchland at 12:49 PM on September 6, 2003

What's the name of that French dish with one of the ingredients being "a pinch of merde?"
posted by Blue Stone at 12:51 PM on September 6, 2003

So you're telling me that eating popcorn off the floor instead of spending $20 on concessions is bad?

What if it was a regular movie theatre instead of a porno house?
posted by Stan Chin at 1:02 PM on September 6, 2003

Women are more likely than men to eat food that's been on the floor.

yeah, but do women scratch their butts and then proceed to gorge into a burrito? that's the real question.
posted by poopy at 1:15 PM on September 6, 2003

I wish I was in college.
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:17 PM on September 6, 2003

there is no five second rule

... if you're on a floor covered in e.coli anyway. Otherwise it doesn't matter, according to this study, and their floors were cleaner than they thought.
posted by Space Coyote at 1:40 PM on September 6, 2003

I always thought it was a joke. Did people actually take the 5 sec rule literally?
posted by internal at 1:56 PM on September 6, 2003

FarkFilter
posted by FormlessOne at 2:01 PM on September 6, 2003

My daughter and I eat food off the floor all the time and we think that's why we never get sick. My dad, a good ol' 1950's common sense doctor told us it built up our immune system.

We except buttered toast, ice cream, and eels from this rule, though.
posted by kozad at 3:28 PM on September 6, 2003

why buttered toast?
posted by poopy at 3:38 PM on September 6, 2003

Women are more likely than men to eat food that's been on the floor

Hmmm... That certainly wasn't the case in grade school...
posted by gyc at 3:41 PM on September 6, 2003

My daughter and I eat food off the floor all the time and we think that's why we never get sick. My dad, a good ol' 1950's common sense doctor told us it built up our immune system.

Way to go. This is the exact same reasoning I use on my wife when she asks why I like to lick manhole covers.
posted by bradth27 at 3:44 PM on September 6, 2003

poopy : buttered toast always lands buttered side down. It's a statistical certainty.
posted by crunchland at 3:50 PM on September 6, 2003

What's the name of that French dish with one of the ingredients being "a pinch of merde?"

anything cooked for American tourists' consumption in a French restaurant's cuisine
posted by matteo at 3:54 PM on September 6, 2003

[off-topic?] this is one of the funnier, lighthearted, FarkFilteresque threads i've seen in a while. is it ok if i spew coffee/beer/cigarette butts on my monitor after reading bradth27's comment?

oh, and thanks for clearing that up crunchland. i thought i had read somewhere the relationship between butter and The Unified Theory, i just wasn't certain.
posted by poopy at 4:04 PM on September 6, 2003

What's this "five-second" crap? I've always adhered to a 30-minute rule!
posted by davidmsc at 4:04 PM on September 6, 2003

...and I thought it was the right-hand rule: you can eat it off the floor, but only if you use your right hand (note: those of you who are neither physicists nor electrical engineers may not get the reference).
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:28 PM on September 6, 2003

This is the exact same reasoning I use on my wife when she asks why I like to lick manhole covers.

Why not just come out with it and tell her the truth?
posted by trondant at 4:38 PM on September 6, 2003

I wish I was in college.

I'd like to note the first four words of the article:
"High-school student Jillian Clarke
and also
"The College of ACES' Research Apprentice Program is an intensive seven-week laboratory and academic summer program that provides hands-on science experience for talented high school juniors and seniors who are interested in careers in the food, agricultural, and environmental sciences."
I'd say this young lady has a bright future ahead of her.
posted by anastasiav at 5:23 PM on September 6, 2003

Yeah, and I really believe the writer of that piece is Phyllis Picklesimer, Communications Specialist...

Ice cubes are really easy to recover from the floor; just wipe them on your shirt before putting them in your drink. (My wife keeps wondering why I always come out of the kitchen with a wet shirt...)

Now approaching the Too Much Information Zone...
posted by wendell at 5:31 PM on September 6, 2003

I grew up with a variation of the rule. It was a 3 second, 1 person rule. If anybody other than yourself witnessed the food touching the floor, you didn't eat it.

You could, of course, serve it to a customer.
posted by vito90 at 6:18 PM on September 6, 2003

It's the thirty second rule, I'm telling you.

Americans are too darn squeamish.
posted by konolia at 6:45 PM on September 6, 2003

It's the thirty second rule, I'm telling you.

You've waited tables, haven't you?
posted by machaus at 7:01 PM on September 6, 2003

buttered toast always lands buttered side down. It's a statistical certainty.

Unless the buttered toast is tied to the back of a cat, which, of course, always lands on its feet. I've never tried it (out of rank fear) but I suspect one of two outcomes -- the cat will hover, or the entire universe will break down.
posted by eriko at 7:11 PM on September 6, 2003

How'd you know?
posted by konolia at 7:11 PM on September 6, 2003

Eriko, the solution is much simpler than that: in all cases, your knot proves unsound. As the feline's feet find the floor, the buttered bread breaks free and heads off to the inevitable. After which the cat will then turn one and a half circles before making a bed on the buttered bread.

I state that with Heisenbergian certainty. Or is that Schroedingerian?
posted by Ptrin at 8:43 PM on September 6, 2003

buttered toast always lands buttered side down. It's a statistical certainty.

Actually, according to that one show I no longer remember the name of, but featured a scientist type and a large man in a rat costume explaining scientific questions, the reason that buttered toast always lands buttered side down is because there isn't enough time for the bread to make a complete revolution.

If you were to put the buttered side down on a table and push it off, it would land buttered side up.

Try it and see; there'll be a butter trail across your table and toast on the floor, but it's all in the name of science.
posted by eschewed at 10:07 PM on September 6, 2003

I always thought that the toast landed buttered side first because the wetness of the buttered side made it top-heavy.
posted by Dreama at 11:09 PM on September 6, 2003

I suspect one of two outcomes -- the cat will hover, or the entire universe will break down.

Dare the numinous. Herein lies the solution to our energy problems:

When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands buttered side down. It was proposed to strap giant slabs of hot buttered toast to the back of a hundred tethered cats; the two opposing forces will cause the cats to hover, spinning inches above the ground. Using the giant buttered toast/cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link New York with Chicago.

Originally from a contest in OMNI.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 11:24 PM on September 6, 2003

that's exactly what it (the butter) would like you to think Dreama, but i've done my own experiments and the toast always landed buttered side down (one exception being when i forcefully placed the dry side on the floor with my bare hands), NOT because it was top-heavy though (oh no, the butter is a devious slippery bastard). after repeated flippings of buttered (experimental) and non-buttered (control) toast i began to see a pattern: the buttered toast would feign landing on it's 'bottom' and then quickly change sides. this occurred in all experiments i conducted.

at first bewildered by this phenomenon i began to realize that if the toast were to land on it's 'dry' side then the butter would assume that i would just pick it up and eat it. however...
if i were to drop the toast on it's buttered side, then i would have to place more butter on the toast to preserve it's tasty flavor.

my conclusion: butter sticks.
posted by poopy at 11:33 PM on September 6, 2003

Actually, according to that one show I no longer remember the name of, but featured a scientist type and a large man in a rat costume explaining scientific questions

Beakman's World.
posted by kayjay at 12:15 AM on September 7, 2003

This is why metafilter is the place to go. Where else can you engage in conversation over a scientific reasoning of the 5 second rule? Ladies and Gentlemen, we are witnessing history.
posted by Keyser Soze at 12:45 AM on September 7, 2003

No, no, no. What happens in the cat/toast experiment is that you can never actually observe how the cat lands. You'll just see the cat on it's little paws a second later as it about to scratch the s**t out of you. Alternatively, if the cat is not siamese or it's in heat it just rubs butter all over your leg.
posted by rdr at 7:26 AM on September 7, 2003

Man, I wish MeFi was as good as politics as it is at science.
posted by orange swan at 8:01 AM on September 7, 2003

PolitiFilter
posted by Keyser Soze at 4:33 PM on September 7, 2003

The shirt rule: If you drop a utensil on the floor, you can pick it up and wipe it on your shirt and it's clean for you. It is completely sterilized if you're the one who's going to eat with it. If it's anyone else's, all bets are off.

This has always seemed to be the case, though I don't know where I got it. Just picked it up, I guess. Heh.
posted by soyjoy at 9:28 AM on September 8, 2003