We’ve written many times about science’s ongoing war on the 5-second rule. Despite evidence that you really shouldn’t eat food you drop on the ground, only 20 percent of voters in our poll last year said they trash food that’s taken the plunge.

Now comes The New York Times with a new warning from a medical professional in the latest attempt to scare you straight. Says the chief of the division of infectious diseases at Weill Cornell Medical College:

“The five-second rule probably should become the zero-second rule. Eating dropped food poses a risk for ingestion of bacteria and subsequent gastrointestinal disease, and the time the food sits on the floor does not change the risk.”

What foods do you deem so tasty they’re worth the risk of gastrointestinal disease?

The 5-Second Rule [The New York Times via The Awl]

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