Saturday, October 18, 2008
"1..2..3..4..5!! Eh that piece of food dropped on the floor more than 5 seconds already, cannot eat..!"
I'm sure many have heard something like this before. Or maybe you are one of those preaching such a rule yourself, but perhaps changing it to the 7-second rule instead. 2 more seconds to grab that food bit; well done!
But is there any evident truth to it? (I've always thought its ridiculous)
In this present day and age you would probably just Google "food 5-second rule". That's what I did (my utmost gratitude to the nerds who invented the Internet!), and I shockingly discovered that it is apparently true. In a study, food picked up E.coli bacteria only after 5 seconds.
So I guess the 5 seconds rule actually holds true.
However, think about this for a moment.. if food picks up E.coli from a clean and disinfected floor, then why not our plates and tables? And why not every other freaking surface on this planet? Why not from the atmosphere too while I'm at it? Have you just realized how redundant this rule is?
My advice to you is this, if you really want to eat something off the floor, just do it because you won't die from it and you'll satisfy your warped craving. While you're worrying about the E.coli on the floor, the E.coli on your plate is rolling all over your food.
If you are really afraid of 5 more seconds of E.coli, you might as well stop eating. Then you'd die looking like Lindsay Lohan.. and that's a lot worse than food poisoning.
Since I'm onto food here, let me recount this experience I had while I was eating out. So I was eating at this restaurant recently and while I got my food fast, my friend was left waiting till I was almost done with my whole set meal before his was served.
One of the things I absolutely hate is waiting hours for my food, I like it pronto. And for the record, I’ve been losing my appetite and eating A LOT slower (which is totally unacceptable) these days. So anyway, when his food finally came, I remarked to him that I was lucky not to have ordered his item because it took so damn long...
Guess what?
For no apparent reason whatsoever, the eavesdropping waitress serving the food turned to give me a very dirty look, akin to one where I’ve just called her a "nasty bitch with smelly unshaven armpits"..
Naturally I wasn't very happy that someone had taken offence with my casual remark and given me such a look. In the first place, there was nothing wrong with my remark (not as if I commented out loud that the waitress had hairy armpits. I don't go sniffing or looking up people’s sleeves), because the food was truly slow to come!
And! Since we’re on the subject of E.coli.. my friend's food probably picked up like 20 more minutes of the bacteria during the wait! That's 240 times more than the acceptable limit! We should be filing a bloody law suit for goodness sake! Bitchy waitress aside, we passed by an ice-cream store after, displaying this huge sign proclaiming their desserts to be "94% fat-free!". My friend then remarked that it probably only means that the last 6% is pure fat. So true.
Well, I honestly don't care much about carbs or the need to diet, watch what I eat, etc. because (un)fortunately, I'm one of those born to endorse slimming centres. In other words, no matter how much I eat or want to, i’ll never seem to grow fat..
That said.. bring on the E.coli anytime!Labels: Random Ruminations, Service staff
6:11:00 PM
