5-second rule: to eat or not to eat. That is the question? – Part 1.

Image credit: Unsplash by Josephina Kolpachnikof

We all heard about the 5-second rule. Your mother always told you never to eat from the floor, but is it just an old wives’ tale? How long does it take germs to cross-contaminate food on the floor? cross-contamination can happen at different levels. Some are a higher risk than others. For example, when a piece of food falls on the floor versus food covered with a plastic barrier. So, if you drop a piece of say, bread, on the floor that is still in the plastic. The risk would be less than a piece of bread that is exposed to the floor.

The Maillard Reaction

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“For British food scientists, toast color is no longer a matter of personal preference—it’s a matter of health.” 

The smell of fresh bread, or cooked crispy meat. Makes you wonder how does that happen? Each food product you cook with in the kitchen has two ingredients, proteins (amino acid) and sugars (reducing sugars) that lead to a reaction, which creates flavors and aroma. The most important in the reaction is heat. To start the reaction, the temperature needs to be above 300F to evaporate the protein on the surface of the product. This is an important first step because there are no enzymes that assist in the reaction. This process is called the Maillard reaction.