The controversial “five-second rule” — the one that lets us eat dropped food if it’s quickly scooped off the floor — is a bunch of boloney, according to Clemson University food scientist Paul Dawson, who stirred up the long-debated issue in this month’s National Geographic. 
 
 Though previous research has shown we may have up to a minute to rescue certain types of spilled food before it becomes contaminated, Dawson and his students made a strong case for the “zero-second rule.” They found that salmonella and other bacteria can live up to four weeks on dry surfaces and be immediately transferred to food. 
 
 (Chicago Tribune illustration by Michael Miner) 
 
 The zero-tolerance standard, however, conflicts with the findings of two Connecticut College student researchers who sprinkled apple slices and Skittles candies in the college dining hall and snack bar for five, 10, 30 and 60-second intervals. The apple slices picked up bacteria after one minute; nearly five minutes elapsed before the Skittles attracted any. 
 
 Then there were the University of Maine undergraduates who concluded that using the five-second-rule could reduce food waste and possibly improve children’s immune systems. 
 
 Still, most researchers agree that the critical thing is not time, but location. It’s OK to brush off the bagel that fell from the stroller onto the sidewalk and give it to your screaming child, for example, because the pavement is cleaner than the kitchen floor in terms of the types of germs that cause illnesses, said Dr. Harley Rotbart, a professor of microbiology and pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. 
 
 “The kitchen floor, however, is probably a zero-second zone because the bacteria from uncooked meat and chicken juices are more hazardous than the ‘soil’ bacteria outside,” said Rotbart. The bathroom floor is another zero-second zone because “it’s a great potential source of bacteria and shorter-lived viruses that can cause gastrointestinal illness if ingested,” said Rotbart, the author of “Germ Proof Your Kids.” 
 
 Ultimately, however, most people assess their risk according to how badly they want what has slipped through their fingers and whether anyone else is looking. Women are more likely to eat food that has been on the floor than men, while cookies and candy are much more likely to be picked up and eaten than cauliflower or broccoli, research shows. 
 
 Unfortunately, despite the distress it causes, there’s just no rescuing ice cream. 
 
 Related content: 
 
 The five-second rule is alive and well at Illinois same-day surgery centers, according to Associated Press Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson. "Medical staff were observed picking up items that had fallen to the floor and behaving as if they weren't contaminated by germs, according to state inspection reports." Here's the full story, "Illinois clinics cited over infection control." ||||| Your kitchen towel may harbor a number of different bacteria, a new study finds. But does that mean your towel can actually make you sick? 
 
 Although the new finding may sound gross, it doesn't mean you should ditch your kitchen towel; experts said the bacteria found on the towels in this study aren't particularly concerning when it comes to foodborne illnesses. 
 
 For the study, the researchers gathered 100 kitchen towels from families. The scientists took samples from the towels — which had been used, without being washed, for one month — and cultured, or grew, these samples in lab dishes. The study found that 49 percent of the towels tested positive for bacteria and that the amount of bacteria was higher for towels used by large families or families with children, compared with towels used by smaller families or families without children. [Top 7 Germs in Food that Make You Sick] 
 
 In addition, towels used for multiple purposes — including wiping utensils, drying hands and wiping surfaces — grew more bacteria than towels used for a single purpose, the researchers found. And damp towels grew more bacteria than dry towels, according to the study, which was presented Saturday (June 9) at the American Society for Microbiology meeting in Atlanta. 
 
 Of the towel samples that tested positive for bacteria, about 73 percent grew types of bacteria found in human intestines, including E. coli and Enterococcus species. About 14 percent grew Staphylococcus aureus, or staph, a bacterium that's sometimes found on people's skin. Although staph bacteria usually don't cause illness in healthy people, when the bacterium gets into food, it can product toxins that can cause food poisoning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
 
 The researchers recommended against multipurpose usage of kitchen towels and said that larger families "should be especially vigilant [when it comes] to hygiene in the kitchen," lead study author Dr. Susheela Biranjia-Hurdoyal, a senior lecturer in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Mauritius, said in a statement. 
 
 Benjamin Chapman, an associate professor and food safety specialist at North Carolina State University, said the study gives us a look at what bacteria are in the environment around us. But "it doesn't surprise me at all that something that's in a kitchen environment has bacteria on it. We really do live in a world that's dominated by microorganisms," Chapman told Live Science. 
 
 As for the bacteria found in the study "what's listed here doesn't initially raise concerns with me," Chapman said. The study didn't find any of the common culprits of foodborne illness, such as Salmonella, Campylobacter or pathogenic types of E. coli, such as E. coli O157:H7, he noted. 
 
 Although staph can indeed cause foodborne illness when it's found in food, the bacterium is also very common on skin. "The fact that it's [on] the towel isn't as concerning as [it being in] food," Chapman said. 
 
 Still, Chapman said that, in theory, kitchen towels could aid in the spread of foodborne illness. This could happen if, for instance, someone used a kitchen towel to wipe up meat juices from the counter and another person unknowingly used the towel to dry their hands, Chapman said. (However, the data from the study didn't show that this was happening.) 
 
 Chapman recommended frequently washing and drying kitchen towels to prevent bacterial growth. 
 
 Original article on Live Science. ||||| Dylan Cross for The Wall Street Journal 
 
 Some eye-opening numbers on the poultry in our supermarkets, released today by Consumer Reports: 
 
 In our first-ever lab analysis of ground turkey bought at retail stores nationwide, more than half of the packages of raw ground meat and patties tested positive for fecal bacteria. Some samples harbored other germs, including salmonella and staphylococcus aureus, two of the leading causes of foodborne illness in the U.S. Overall, 90 percent of the samples had one or more of the five bacteria for which we tested. 
 
 Not only were the germs common, but they showed a disturbing level of resistance to some conventional antibiotics, Consumer Reports wrote. The magazine said over-use of antibiotics at large industrial meat production facilities — including feeding such drugs to healthy animals — “is speeding the growth of drug-resistant superbugs, a serious health concern. People sickened by those bacteria might need to try several antibiotics before one succeeds.” 
 
 But these assertions have prompted an angry reply from the National Turkey Federation (NTF), which says many of the findings of the report are misleading (emphasis ours): 
 
 “Consumer Reports had the opportunity to foster a serious, thoughtful discussion about food safety, but instead it chose to sensationalize findings and mislead people,” said NTF President Joel Brandenberger. NTF refuted numerous misleading claims, and challenges the methodology in the report, from which essentially all the “findings” are obtained. To help better educate consumers about ground turkey, here are some important facts: The magazine reported high levels of certain pathogens on the samples tested, but it is important to note that the two most prevalent, enterococcus and generic E.coli are not considered sources of foodborne illness . 
 
 
 
 almost 90 percent of all ground turkey and 97 percent of whole turkeys are Salmonella-free. While the turkey industry strives to control all bacteria on its products, it focuses primarily on those bacteria that present the greatest threat to human health… ( By contrast, for the two pathogens of public health concern—Campylobacter and Salmonella—the magazine found almost no prevalence (5 percent for Salmonella and zero Campylobacter). This is borne out by more extensive government testing, which finds. While the turkey industry strives to control all bacteria on its products, it focuses primarily on those bacteria that present the greatest threat to human health… ( continues 
 
 We’ll leave the turkey business and Consumer Reports to duke it out over the details, but you know it’s a tough news day when an industry association boasts its product is almost 90% salmonella-free. 
 
 It has been a tough couple of years for the meat industry, with the controversy over so-called “pink slime” (a term that has led the beef-product producer in question to sue ABC News in a South Dakota court) and this year’s horse-meat scandal in Europe. 
 
 And still in recent memory for the turkey industry: America’s third-biggest meat recall ever, back in mid-2011, when 36 million pounds of ground turkey were recalled after food regulators discovered a particularly nasty — and potentially fatal — strain of salmonella at the plant where it originated. 
 
 See also: 
 
 Judge Orders FDA to Proceed on Food-Safety Rules – WSJ 
 
 FDA Proposes Extensive Food-Safety Rules – WSJ
– The 5-second rule may or may not protect your stomach from nasty germs (here's a no, here's a yes), but it probably depends more on location than duration, writes Julie Deardorff, who rounds up recent studies and talks to scientists for her Health Club column in the Chicago Tribune. Kitchen and bathroom floors, for instance, are nasty places where a 0-second rule is wise. The sidewalk, on the other hand, is safer because it's less likely to harbor the germs that cause illness. A kitchen floor "is probably a zero-second zone because the bacteria from uncooked meat and chicken juices are more hazardous than the ‘soil’ bacteria outside,” says one medical expert on the subject. Ditto for a bathroom floor because "it’s a great potential source of bacteria and shorter-lived viruses that can cause gastrointestinal illness if ingested.”