To the Editor:
The focus on the health consequences and microbiology of the five-second rule for eating food that has fallen to the floor may be missing the reason such a rule arose in the first place. I doubt that many people believe that consuming food that lingers on the floor for four seconds is O.K. but that at six seconds it’s not.
It seems far more likely that by invoking this apparently arbitrary rule in the presence of others, the person retrieving the food is providing social cover for what might otherwise be viewed as barbarous behavior.
JOHN WALDMAN
Sea Cliff, N.Y.
The writer is a professor of biology at Queens College.
Note from KBJ: Wait. The five-second rule is a joke, right?
