Did that food fall on the floor? Don’t sweat it, maybe

[Resist the urge to eat food that’s been on the ground/YouTube]

It’s lunch time and you just grabbed a classic cold brew coffee and one of your bakery’s finest quinoa muffins. The day, it seems, is your oyster.

You cross the street to grab a seat on a bench in the shade of your local urban parkette, ready to indulge in your recently-acquired baked goodness.

Suddenly, however, a young punk on a skateboard side-swipes you. Your muffin is jarred from your hand and tumbles to the ground.

You quickly pick it off the pavement and ponder: ‘Is it still edible?’

Consider the ‘five-second rule’.

In case you’re unfamiliar, the unofficial rule states that items, such as food, can still be consumed as long as it is picked up within five seconds of being dropped.

The thinking indicates that a mere five second is not enough time for something to be significantly contaminated with bacteria.

Turns out, however, that this explanation only begins to scratch the surface.

As Discovery Science Channel’s “The Quick and The Curious” explained, as long as the food is a dry good, like a cookie, it is still totally safe to eat if scooped up within a few seconds.

If that cookie has some frosting on it, however, you might want to let it stay on the ground.

“When any food flops on the floor, small amounts of bacteria will jump aboard immediately,“ the video explains. "But moist foods left longer than 30 seconds collect 10 times the bacteria than those snapped up after only three.”

To demonstrate how much of the public thinks The five-second rule is a myth, NASA engineer Mike Meacham walk the streets and offer passerby’s floor cookies.

Only one person accepted the cookie after its hit the ground, much to the horror of his female companion.