A few days ago some friends and I discussed whether we would eat food if it fell on the floor. As someone who loves food, hates wasting things, and is sometimes messy, this is an important question. Not life or death, but important.Since I have a long history of eating food off the floor and I haven’t died yet, I’ve decided to produce a set of standards. Maybe guidelines is actually a better word, although standards implies that we’re not going to eat just anything off the floor, which is important to remember.After all, if you die from eating something off of the floor, then I have one fewer reader. And no one wants that, do they?
I don’t want to get us started on the wrong foot, so let’s think positive. What can we eat if it falls on the floor?Most dry things. Nuts, breakfast cereal, pretzels, chips, popcorn, candy, anything with a peel, if the peel is still on (apples, pears, etc). A warning about the breakfast cereal, if it’s sugary then there’s a chance it might collect some dust on the floor. Use caution.You might be able to eat some dry things if your floor has recently been cleaned. Bread, for example. If you’ve just cleaned your floor, then it’s probably okay to eat a slice of bread if you drop it while making a PB&J. (As long as there’s no PB or J on it. We’ll cover this in a minute.)However, if it’s been a while since Mr. Clean’s been around, then there’s a good chance some dust, dead skin, or hair from God knows where will attach itself to the bread. You might not even see it, but it’s there, probably hiding in the crevices. Don’t do it!Some produce is okay, too. Blueberries, grapes, raspberries, tomatoes, and anything that grows in the ground are safe. All bets are off if the produce is cut though. That exposes the wet, sugary portion of the food, which is like a magnet for all sorts of things you want nowhere near your mouth. Whole strawberry, fine. Sliced strawberry, not fine.Those simple rules cover a lot of food, and you can thank me later for saving you from wasting so much.Now, the serious business. The no-way-in-hell foods. After these foods fall on the floor the only place to put them is the garbage.Meat. Clean floor or dirty floor, there’s plenty of gross stuff that likes to attach itself to dead animal flesh. Unless you’re training your gut to survive on a diet of uncooked urban street animals, don’t eat meat off the floor.Lunchmeat. Same as above, only wetter.Anything wet or sticky. Pickles, bananas, cheese, cooked pasta, yogurt, ice cream, rice. You get the picture. Believe me, nothing’s more disgusting than a hairy banana.Bread that has a spread on it. You can bet the farm that if you drop a piece of bread and one side has peanut butter, jelly, mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, butter, or any other spread on it, while there’s nothing on the other side, it’s going to fall with the spread side down. It’s infuriating, but don’t let your temper get the best of you.Those are the ins and outs of actual food. There are other things to consider though.All of these standards only apply at your house. If you drop anything anywhere else, it goes in the garbage. I don’t care how clean you think your friends are, or how regularly Sally’s housekeeper washes the kitchen floor, throw that food in the garbage.However, if you’re even thinking about eating food off the floor at a public place, go ahead. You deserve whatever’s coming to you.If you have pets, all bets are off. I wouldn’t personally eat off my own floor if I had a pet that walked on that floor, but then again I wouldn’t feed my dog peanut butter off of a spoon and then lick the spoon, so maybe I just don’t understand.Keep in mind, also, that you can be a little looser with the standards if you take your shoes off when you enter your house than if you walk around with shoes on. Think about what's on the floor in that hallway at work. Do you want your food touching that?And before you ask, all of these standards are independent of the Five-Second Rule because the Five-Second rule does not exist.Happy eating!PREVIOUS POST: Vegan for a Month: Lessons LearnedIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: PB&J The Right Way+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.
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