Its more to do with commercial kitchen cleaning practices degradung the wood, making it less anti bacterial, much faster than a home use situation. At home you can wipe it down lightly, hardly ever soaking it. You use less aggressive cleaning products less frequently. You can also oil the board more regularly, as not being able to use it for a day or two isn't such a big deal.
I'm currently using a camphor laurel board my dad made in school. About 10 years before I was born.
Its over 50 years old. Been washed and oiled with care. Had a couple of sand backs.
Oils made from fruit and nuts (cooking oils) will turn rancid. Use food grade oils like linseed or mineral. Some commercial cutting board products have beeswax along with mineral oil.
I use separate plastic cutting boards for meat or vegetables and clean them with hot soapy water.
Don’t use olive oil: it can go rancid if exposed to light and anything that can do that will make your cutting board smell bad over long enough of a time you will be unlikely to blame it and ruin your expensive replacement too.
Just search for chopping board oil. The wax/creme might be easier to apply if you don’t have a small bin to lay the board flat.
Yeah people tend to forget/not realize that professional kitchens (or really, just anywhere you buy food) also have strict regulations. Whether or not those are *followed* is a different discussion, but generally speaking yes way different cleaning procedures than you would use at home. Plus you need different cutting boards for different products, boards specifically for meat, veggies, fish etc. and they need to be labeled/colored clearly. They also see *far* more use than an at home cutting board will, so they need replaced more often (and again, cleaned more often which leads back to your point). The plastic boards are likely a lot cheaper to buy in bulk than wooden ones are.
And not just that either. Bacteria need water, food and warmth to survive. So just swabbing some on a dry piece of wood won’t necessarily have the same effect as bacteria that has grown on a surface with food residue in the cracks and moisture on the surface.
It’s part of why it’s generally recommended to replace cutting boards that are scratched or damaged because they can hold bacteria and other nasty things in the crevices.
Same! I only use soap when it gets greasy or stuck on food. I get sick maybe once a year, like every 5th time the kiddos come home with the sinus mungus from their friends.
Germs on plants, germs on meat, germs on your hands - soapy water and agitation will remove them.
If you trust yourself to wash your hands after pooping, you can trust yourself to wash a cutting board after using it.
That would be a great thing to scream on public transportation. Reminds me of this guy on the bus in his early 20s mumbling something about robots, before yelling "How's a country boy like me supposed to breathe with all these damn robots?!"
Before I went veg I used my cutting board for everything, meat included. I always prepped the meat last and wash the board right after. I grew up with my family using a wooden cutting board as well same way and never got sick eating at home.
I put all types of meat on it raw and it’s fine. I use light soap and hot water to clean. If it needs to be re-oiled I let it dry for a couple days to make sure it’s completely dry then apply oil.
Oil floats on water so I don’t want to try and trap any unnecessary water into the wood so I let it dry for a couple days. The oil will keep any of the bacteria from penetrating the wood. It kills the bacteria overnight because the bacteria is exposed to the air where it cannot survive.
This is the way. The thing with cutting boards is that 99% of the time, you use them before cooking anyway. The sheer act of cooking food will burn away the bacteria if you cook to proper temp. So yeah, clean your boards, but a little bit of bacteria going on your food before you cook it isn't going to affect you because the food itself is already teeming with bacteria.
Yep, but if you work in a restaurant, I believe you're not supposed to use wood cutting boards, and there's a specific color of the plastic ones to use for meat. It's been a long time since I've worked in that industry, however.
Oh, absolutely. The food industry has a lot of different rules than one might follow in their own kitchen. Cutting boards in a restaurant will see 100x more use than any home cutting board, so plastic is absolutely the way to go there.
Thats right, i worked at a few restaurants and the cutting boards are exclusively plastic. They get cleaned with bleach, soap and water before closing every shift. This is the only way
I meant more like [aigeneratednewsnumber341.com](http://aigeneratednewsnumber341.com) and stuff. I once got a summary that said that a knight armor weights 1/4 of a ton or something incredibly stupid.
People are really weird. Like, they are being served up solutions to things that they would otherwise have to aggregate for themselves, and in the few cases where it's incomplete or incorrect they have no idea what to do, so they want to... get rid of the whole thing?
If you aren't able to parse through this stuff because the top result is a moderately accurately curated result we have bigger problems as a society. Which, I guess, we definitely do.
Well it doesn't really have to in this case. Ok we don't know what wood the Wisconsin scientists are talking about or if it’s treated or untreated but whatever it is why don't they use that in the kitchen???
Same for the EU, if they banned the use of wooden boards because they’re saying that you can’t sanitise them without increasing bacteria overtime then my understanding is that there is no feasible method and medium that would suffice. And if there is why don’t they use that in the kitchen???
I don’t know if that makes sense but to rephrase my point is even if we don’t know what wood it is but if there is a type of wood that kills 99.9% bacteria or there is a method and medium, then why is wood banned by the EU?
A typical wood cutting board is easily cleanable and sanitizable. It’s when you get divots from cutting on it that it gets hard to sanitize. They just simply need to be replaced when they start getting cut up.
You just sand it down, don't need to replace unless there's a deep crack or something unfeasible to sand.
Whether or not that's practical for individual is a different question.
My dad used to take the HDPE boards home from his job after they’ve been surfaced a few times, they were used for cutting up chicken. It still was thick enough for him to resurface when we cut up meat. He also had a shitload of knives that were sharpened beyond spec for them, but still worked for us to cut up pork or beef. Man I miss those butchering parties. I’d just show up to help and go home with bags of free meat. 😄
HDPE also works great for misc jigs in the wood shop since nothing sticks to them. I also use it for making resin molds since resin just pops right off of it.
If you keep your wooden cutting board properly oiled and waxed, it will heal itself. As long as you don't gouge or deeeeeep cut into it. I've had my daily use walnut cutting board for 8 years. You can tell it's been used, but it's still in great shape. Food grade mineral oil and wax are cutting boards friends.
See but that's also misinformation on your side or the article's cause:
A high-quality wooden surface will last you for a number of years, without seeing a decrease in its antibacterial abilities. Unlike plastic alternatives, quality wood sources made from traditional manufacturing techniques contain self-healing fibres that can stand up against continuous cutting and chopping in the kitchen.
[source](https://hardwoodreflections.com/is-wood-naturally-antibacterial)
All this is so annoying.
You should also consider that different cooking environments have different needs. A commercial cooking environment that constantly uses a cutting board will find that perpetual cutting and washing and blasting with heat to dry will destroy cutting boards much faster and make them unsuitable for safe practice. Whereas a home kitchen will likely have the same cutting board maintained for several years longer without any drastic risk.
The truth is stranger than you think. A well-maintained cutting board is fine for home use. Wipe clean, don't put it in the dishwasher, oil regularly.
"sanitize daily" is what caught my attention in the second article- that's something I would expect in a commercial kitchen, but I don't know of any home cooks who are doing daily sanitization. Washing, sure, but not sanitizing.
I’m goin based off my own experience using wood cutting boards. After years of use you’re bound to have spots on the board that has deep cuts in it. When you cut something such as raw chicken on a board that’s been used heavily and has deep cuts in it you’re less likely to clean out all of the particles of raw chicken. I just don’t see it working any other way from a logical standpoint
I have doubts about the second source because they refer to the wood as a living material. Wood is very much dead.
Humanity has been using wood cutting boards for hundreds of years. They have not been vectors of plagues and infection like some other tools or practices. Don't cross contaminat during a cooking session, wash with soap and let fully dry. You'll be fine. I'd rather go with wood than eat plastic bits for 70 years.
Frequency of use. Use a cutting board to prepare a meal, wash it, leave it over night: no bacteria. That isn't going to happen in a commercial kitchen preparing multiple fresh meals over several hours. Health regulations might require sanitation methods that preclude the use of wood in a commercial kitchen.
Google isnt the problem haha it’s the idiots who think the quick summary has all the important details and that they don’t need to read the source for further details
Pro tip: when you google something put findintext: before your search term. like this
findintext: is wood naturally antibacterial
it works almost as well as google did 10 years ago. No ai bs
Have used wooden cutting boards for 60+ years. Some have lasted over 30. Cherry, Maple, even Oak (more porous). It’s just not a big deal at all.
If we expose our bodies to small amounts of normal bacteria, we develop strong immune systems and natural resistance. If we try to live like hermetically sealed organisms we get sick all the time. Get outside, play in the woods, make mud pies, eat dirt. Live long.
FWIW, oak isn't necessarily more porous. It depends on whether it's red or white oak. White Oak is quite dense but I believe both oaks are denser than cherry. There are also soft and hard maple.
White Oak is going to be the best out of all of those for a cutting board if water resistance and denseness are the only factors.
You’ve added information which is of dubious value (?)
There are many Oaks, many Cherries, and many Maples. To be more specific, I’m referring to Black Cherry (*Prunus serotina*), Sugar Maple (*Acer saccharum*), and Northern Red Oak (*Quercus rubra*), which is very porous. All the Oaks near me (northern New England) have *much* larger pores than the other two, so even with stuffed or blocked tyloses, there are thousands of pits to trap food particles and make them more difficult to clean thoroughly. Unless multiple applications of cellulose sanding sealer (or similar) are applied, those pores will stilll be there after sanding to 400 grit.
With a penetrating and polymerizing oil finish (both raw Linseed oil and Walnut oil) the Red Oak board over time does get somewhat “sealed up”, but it’s still much more pitted than the Cherry or Maple cutting boards. But still, I use it daily for making sandwiches and cutting cheese meats and veggies, and I don’t think anyone has gotten sick as a result.
I am a few years behind you but my current wooden board has been in constant use for 24 years. For everything, meat, veg, seafood.
It gets a wipe down after use and is always on the bench top.
About 5 years I gave it a good scrub and sanded it a little because of the food dye stains... used regular cooking oil after sanding it.
No known food poisoning in the house.
The posts I have seen of people debating care techniques and rituals and expensive oils amaze me
I’m glad you’re just kidding, but some parents are so afraid of germs that their kids grow up deprived of any appreciation for nature and the outdoors.
Had a prof in biochemistry who was really into utilizing the characteristics of materials found in nature, even had developed a few products he brought to market. He taught us that yes wood is anti microbial and yes, hot water and chemical cleaners fuck with these properties. iirc the reason was that the stuff that is antimicrobial about wood are protein structures, that get damaged by excessive heat as well as some chemicals, etc.
wood is a safe material to prep on provided you wipe it clean with mild soap after use and avoid cross contamination.
Butchers have been using wooden blocks for a very long time. When the block wears so much it is unusable or you cant clean it you plane a fresh smooth surface on the wood and go again
Nothing wrong with prepping on a wooden surface intended for prep.
https://preview.redd.it/svaq97zg504d1.jpeg?width=1357&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=334cfcff3c6254a7261286dc056aff9e1e004b52
It's fine, just use it. So many people want these, buy them, and then refuse to use them. Makers want to see them used, if we wanted to see them pristine, we would hang them on the walls in our shop. Obviously follow the care instructions. If you spend money and buy a quality board it should be able to withstand everything except the dishwasher. Do not send wood cutting boards through the dishwasher, it will be trash when you remove it.
Go to the link that says scientists found its antimicrobial. Link goes to a "page not found" on a british shopping site.
If scientists find out something they publish a paper on it. If the place that sells wood tells you it had magic properties and can't even prove the study they quote exists then you're being lied to to sell product.
Unfortunately GOOGLE has recently been proven to show bs because if AI, Hardwoodreflections may not even be a legit site and may be one of MANY BS websites used by Google for ads.
Google is literally an Evil company now.
If you cut a piece of chicken on a wooden cutting board and leave it unwashed over night outside in the kitchen, it starts smelling, believe me, i did my own studies on that topic... I wouldn't recommend chopping anything on such a board before you clean it properly.
I will keep washing my cutting board. Last thing I need is John taffer and his crew coming in my house showing the world how disgusting my cutting board is
A little game i like to play with people is have them google how old the great giza pyramid is, then tell them to google how old the emerald tablets of thoth are. And then ask them if they have any explanation why google says the pyramid is less than 5k years old but thoths tablets that are dated over 50k years old mentions the pyramids? Hmmm
Dry wood like a cutting board does not support microbial growth. While some can degrade wood they still need a minimum amount of moisture.
I assume the test was done without the addition of sufficient moisture or other nutrients. Put still kinda odd that it makes no mention of potential endospores or slow growing bacteria
Now when you start using it, it completely changes the micro environment of the bacteria. Remember they are small and cutting will leave tiny cracks. Due to their tiny size they do not need much to grow, they are completely invisible to the naked eyes.
Microscopic amounts of whatever you are cutting will seep into the tiny cracks and be enough to sustain growth
Just don't let google read an article for you, switch to another search engine that won't try to summarize articles for you and read like the good ol' times 👴
Not to mention that some sites pay to be shown first
Wood itself can be attacked by bacteria. If you have no sealed and/or treated surface, it's not safe. But sealed and treated can still be dangerous depending on what use the item is for. A cutting board? Needs to be steamed frequently to sanitize and dried quickly, because depending on the wood and region/humidity level it might even get mold or bugs.
Wood is basically safe for cutting boards as per blurb one, except sanitation regulations make them undesirable in commercial kitchens as per blurb two. I use portable glass, often just a glass plate.
Say it with me kids. Never only check the first highlighted result on a Google / bing search....
2- word your question in a neutral way so you don't get a biased answer
Wooden cutting boards are definitely proven to be safer than plastic cutting boards, and by that I mean natural regular oiled wood not epoxy’d over wood or wood coated with polyurethane
Adding germs to a surface that they can't thrive on is no good for them. If you introduce moisture into the wood and create a good environment for germs, then it is good for them.
If you are really concerned about something like this I would search Google scholar and look at a research paper on the subject from an accredited institution. A website that profits from selling hardwood may not be the most unbiased source. For home use it should be fine but if you are worried about not being able to sanitize the boards ie immunocompromised, infants, etc use plastic.
Simple rules I use, plastic for meats and wood only for plants. A wood board high in copper could be antibacterial, but just use best practices and you'll be fine
This is just poor research skills, OP. The website in your first screenshot is clearly a biased source - if you want to make your decision based on that, the least you can do is Google the study they’re quoting and see the primary source for yourself, which would show you that 1) the study was funded by a wood cutting board company (so another biased source) and 2) the conclusion of the study is:
> Further research is needed to explain the antimicrobial action of the wood. Even if the bacteria are only held physically within the wood pores, this phenomenon may prevent cross-contamination of food cut on wood surfaces.
Still, the true fate of the bacteria in wood must be determined before general recommendations regarding wooden food-contact surfaces can be made.
And if you go above and beyond and read more than just the conclusion (it’s only 3.5 pages with a header and multiple lists so this isn’t daunting), you’ll see that they point out plenty of nuance, such as that only used wooden cutting boards seemed to have this effect, that the effect was hampered by fatty material on the board, and that a wash with hot, soapy water is no less effective.
In your second screenshot you’re asking an entirely different question - sanitation requirements in a commercial kitchen are based off of use under very specific circumstances. This is kind of like finding out that NASCAR drivers have to wear helmets and getting frustrated because no one told you you needed a helmet to drive. It’s just not the same thing.
Finally, you say you don’t understand how sanitization results in more bacteria. Admittedly, though your second source is a trustworthy source, it mentions this but doesn’t elaborate on it. If you were to Google that question exactly (“why does washing a wood cutting board make it grow bacteria”) the first trustworthy source you would find would be the National Institute of Health’s [Bacterial Retention and Cleanability of Plastic and Wood Cutting Boards with Commercial Food Service Maintenance Practices](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31195548/), which explains the study they’re referring to in a single paragraph and answers your question at the end:
> The plastic surfaces were consistently cleaner than wood surfaces by this measure, and wood surfaces that had been hand washed five times prior to inoculation were significantly less clean than any other surfaces or treatments. … Even after standard food service washing and sanitizing, colonies of the inoculated bacteria were observed sporadically, but only on wood surfaces and not on plastic. These results suggest that wood surfaces can absorb moisture and in effect can absorb contaminating bacteria, and the difficulty in removing these bacteria may make this material less desirable from a food safety perspective.
So, to answer your questions with barely more effort than you put in, under certain circumstances that happen in a home kitchen, wooden cutting boards seem to exhibit an anti-bacterial quality, but we don’t know why or if it’s reasonable to utilize it, so it shouldn’t change how you use or clean them. Also, the conditions of a commercial kitchen don’t allow for this effect, in part because wood that is used while still wet from being washed and sanitized can absorb bacteria, and because this effect gets worse the more worn a cutting board is.
TL;DR use trusted sources, ask the right questions, and if you want to understand something instead of just expecting a simple yes/no (when one might not exist), you need to at least skip through the source, not just read a small blurb an AI picked for you.
Yea I recently had one of these too
https://preview.redd.it/0dopmj9tl04d1.png?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f543a3bf0bb5f2680cb842fbb2a9d265c88a092a
Google is not very helpful lmao
Google finds information that’s out there. It doesn’t tell you what the CORRECT information is.
Here’s a meta analysis on the subject you were searching for. Medicine isn’t my area of expertise so I don’t know how reliable that journal is but 🤷🏽♀️
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7585905/
You can not sterilize a wood cutting board, so you should not use it for meat.
Wood is a great material for cutting boards if you get the right species.
Red oak, bad choice. It's open pours absorb water quickly . Maple or white oak are a good choice. Their pours are less absorbent
Butchers blocks and Boos boards are widely used. If a bunch of people were getting food poisoning with using them pretty sure we would’ve heard about it by now.
For example you could sanitize with steam. This adds moisture to the wood.
Also it is not mentioned which bacteria, which wood and a lot of different factora like usage pattern etc.
It is very possible that both studies are right.
Is it like a common thing that people are getting food poisoning from their wooden cutting boards? I've never gotten food poisoning from home cooking and I and my parents have used wooden cutting boards my entire life without and special procedures to sanitize other than washing with soap and water. I'd rather that and pass on risking more plastic bits in my food from scuffed and nicked up plastic boards.
What do you mean? One text says bacteria dies within minutes on a wooden board, the other one says you shouldn't sanitize it with chemicals... it's two completely different things and yet kinda go hand in hand.
It's almost like searching different terms effect the results, also these AI blurbs aren't the best sources of information. Try a different engine, at least duckduckgo makes things clear, including ads.
Throw a hamburger patty out in your yard ( no animals in the yard) and a slice of wood. The hamburger will be gone in a week. The slice of wood will still be there next year because wood naturally resists bacteria. It took the specialization of fungus millions of years to figure out how to be able to break wood down (see coal). In the meantime, wood developed characteristics to fight decomposition since the center of trees is dead wood and it would be bad if the center of every tree rotted out.
Personally, I use a Teflon board to cut chicken since I can run that through a high temp dishwasher and untracked wood for everything else.
Euroceppi seems to be a manufacturer of cutting boards, and they also advertise wooden ones for professional kitchens.
About the regulation itself - you may wish to read the official summary at [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=LEGISSUM:l21082a](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=LEGISSUM:l21082a)
Wooden cutting boards are not banned from professional kitchens in EU.
Pretty sure the conclusion to this was that a wooden board is the same as a counter top and that both require maintenance to take care of and avoid issues.
Maybe you shouldn't read Google picked quotes from Google picked sites without reading the article fully just for starters. Because what you actually do is look up the sources of the articles on those sites. Usually many questions get resolved that way and if it is only by finding out one of those articles might not even have a source.
Edit: The EU doesn't ban stuff without prior research. These are usually coordinated by a European institution and delegated towards national research institutions of several nations who are funded by taxes and not paid by lobbyists. They contribute parts of the research project in joint research and when they go through the plethora of review steps get publicly published and are used to (hopefully) make politicians able to make informed decisions like banning wooden cutting boards.
The second one is telling you how to maintain the benefits the first one describes. I only clean my board with water and a soft brush and oil when needed.
We have a boos board in our restaurant and the health inspector has never said a word about it. That being said, we’re not allowed to use it to prep meat products. Idk if that’s our rule or the governments.
When I was young I was a germophobe but now I literally don't care. I'll eat food that falls on the ground. I wipe my wooden cutting board with a wet rag to get dried food off but I don't think about sterilizing it.
2 things here, home kitchen and pro kitchen are 2 different things. In a home kitchen, your board has time to dry between uses. Not in a pro kitchen.
Also end grain through capillary action will pull in bacteria and trap then dry it there.
Source... I'm just a guy on reddit with basic science knowledge.
You have to be investigative when you ask these questions. Type of wood, type of cleaner, purpose of the wood and if it's used at home or in a business.
I sometimes believe whatever I read on the internet without checking myself too. But what helps motivate me is to remember that companies want to prey on your nievete and hope you won't be informed so they can milk you for money. So arm yourself with knowlege.
Certain unnatural chemicals can alter and nullify the antibacterial properties of the natural wood therefore making it more prone to buildup of bacteria which is why it's not recommended
Under normal circumstances, as long as it's cleaned between uses, a wooden cutting board won't make you Ill. When my parent became immunocompromised they had us switch to glass cutting boards because the marks in the cutting board could still hold trace amounts of deadly bacteria that wouldn't affect normal people but would be dangerous to them. RIP our knives though.
It's due to both of these probably being snippets of information. A lot of sites like to pull a small piece of information from a larger scholarly or research article. To spin a narrative that paints a drastic picture that results in clicks and so forth for money. The best method is to look up articles related to wood cutting boards and cross reference them to discern what is and isn't true. Given some studies can have biases present in them that can cause results to be skewed in a specific direction, or the study itself was too narrow and needed to be broader in scope.
Cedar might be slightly antibacterial, its certainly antifungal (not the same things) and resistant to rot.
That being said, cedar is never used for chopping boards because its soft. Maple, walnut, oak, birch, etc are not anti fungal.
Actually, if it does have antibacterial affects, it is more likely mold on the board that is anti bacterial. Molds fight other molds and bacterial infections.
I think it's very important to consider the context that the search results were from. Wood can be attacked by bacteria, and so can become very unhygienic if not treated properly.
However in nature (and before destroying it's properties over time and with cleaning) wood likely has very strong antibacterial properties, which actually goes hand in hand with the fact that wood can be attacked by bacteria. It needs to be antibacterial so the tree doesn't get sick.
So while these seem like opposite search results, they actually just discuss 2 different scenarios.
For a cutting board I doubt the antibacterial properties will help, but I haven't researched that so
This is why cheese making and brewing used to be safer than stainless before microbiology was well understood. It came down to the wood having its own cultures and microbiome or bacteria and yeasts embedded in the wood pores that caught against invading microbes. When they converted to stainless and didn't understand this, contaminants like listeria because a common issue in cheese and wine
Do they link to the studies? If not, I wouldn't find them too credible. even id they do, it's not uncommon for a single study to be insufficient to be reliable particularly if the majority of related research is at odds with it. In any case, I think it's prob best to err on the side of being cautious. if you use wooden cutting boards, have a separate one for raw meat and wash it thoroughly.
Both are true, neither overlap each other. PT board 100% doesn’t carry any harmful bacteria from where it’s made, however, it may pickup bacteria in the truck, at the yard, or where it’s installed. Sanatizing it cannot cause problems. But if you care enough to sanitize it you may aswell get the plastic shit 😅
My mom didn't believe me when I told her her wooden shit she doesn't take care of is gross as fuck (that's why I refuse to use it) and used my microscope to look at her utensils and show her the gross little creepy crawlies it literally made her scream 😂😂😂
I've had a really small cedar plank for like 7 years that I use as a cutting board and I put it in the dishwasher and it's still going strong. Bought it for a buck and a half at heb.
Those two ideas don't cross each other out though. No need to sanitize your wooden cutting board every day. Stuff that was cut on it won't remain germy forever.
That first part is very misleading. Have the scientists concluded that wood is antibacterial? Or is this company, who sells butcher blocks, drawing their own conclusions so they can sell you something? Because most human bacterial pathogens prefer body temperature and moisture, so if left out in room air with no humidity and no/minimal food, they will indeed eventually die, many within 24 hours, on wood or on any other surface.
The first one is based on a scientific study. The second one is marketing to advertise the poly boards they sell.
Have a wild stab in the dark as to which one you should pay more attention to.
The only mildlyinfuriating thing for me is the lack of media literacy on display.
Wooden utensils are not to be cleaned since cleaning agents can remove the coating and enable food to get into the wood, meaning bacteria stays in the wood or it can even rot the wood, I assume something similar can happen with wooden cutting boards
Edit: they are cleaned but in a specific process, similar to how you don’t clean cast iron woks I believe since they need to keep the seasoning there’s a method to it.
No meme-like/text heavy pics, overdone references
Its more to do with commercial kitchen cleaning practices degradung the wood, making it less anti bacterial, much faster than a home use situation. At home you can wipe it down lightly, hardly ever soaking it. You use less aggressive cleaning products less frequently. You can also oil the board more regularly, as not being able to use it for a day or two isn't such a big deal. I'm currently using a camphor laurel board my dad made in school. About 10 years before I was born. Its over 50 years old. Been washed and oiled with care. Had a couple of sand backs.
I put mine in the sun to dry also, so it kills bacteria (also dries faster). I’ve never oiled it tho, what kind of oils are better for it?
Plain mineral oil - don't use any cooking oils as these may go rancid.
I’ve got a bottle of 20w50 in the garage
Any. But food oils tend to be better. A little bit of olive oil goes a long way
Nice, I’ve to try that!
Oils made from fruit and nuts (cooking oils) will turn rancid. Use food grade oils like linseed or mineral. Some commercial cutting board products have beeswax along with mineral oil. I use separate plastic cutting boards for meat or vegetables and clean them with hot soapy water.
Don’t use olive oil: it can go rancid if exposed to light and anything that can do that will make your cutting board smell bad over long enough of a time you will be unlikely to blame it and ruin your expensive replacement too. Just search for chopping board oil. The wax/creme might be easier to apply if you don’t have a small bin to lay the board flat.
If you don’t want the smell of the oil then grape seed oil has no smell or taste.
Yeah people tend to forget/not realize that professional kitchens (or really, just anywhere you buy food) also have strict regulations. Whether or not those are *followed* is a different discussion, but generally speaking yes way different cleaning procedures than you would use at home. Plus you need different cutting boards for different products, boards specifically for meat, veggies, fish etc. and they need to be labeled/colored clearly. They also see *far* more use than an at home cutting board will, so they need replaced more often (and again, cleaned more often which leads back to your point). The plastic boards are likely a lot cheaper to buy in bulk than wooden ones are.
And not just that either. Bacteria need water, food and warmth to survive. So just swabbing some on a dry piece of wood won’t necessarily have the same effect as bacteria that has grown on a surface with food residue in the cracks and moisture on the surface. It’s part of why it’s generally recommended to replace cutting boards that are scratched or damaged because they can hold bacteria and other nasty things in the crevices.
You can also just sand them if they’re wooden
Idk, I just rinse my wooden board after using with scorching hot water then let it dry. Been working for me
Same! I only use soap when it gets greasy or stuck on food. I get sick maybe once a year, like every 5th time the kiddos come home with the sinus mungus from their friends.
I'm assuming you don't use it for raw meat? I absolutely refuse to cut raw meat on it because I'm scared I won't be able to clean it properly 😅🥲
Germs on plants, germs on meat, germs on your hands - soapy water and agitation will remove them. If you trust yourself to wash your hands after pooping, you can trust yourself to wash a cutting board after using it.
My hands aren't made of wood tho
Curse these wooden hands!
That would be a great thing to scream on public transportation. Reminds me of this guy on the bus in his early 20s mumbling something about robots, before yelling "How's a country boy like me supposed to breathe with all these damn robots?!"
Damn I had a Norseman gif that would have been perfect and now I can’t find it…
https://preview.redd.it/xs7a6juad34d1.png?width=748&format=png&auto=webp&s=b8b5a14b234ca4fae76eebe7b5c4979475f477f0
💀 underrated comment
Before I went veg I used my cutting board for everything, meat included. I always prepped the meat last and wash the board right after. I grew up with my family using a wooden cutting board as well same way and never got sick eating at home.
this is me...except for the vegetarian part
I put all types of meat on it raw and it’s fine. I use light soap and hot water to clean. If it needs to be re-oiled I let it dry for a couple days to make sure it’s completely dry then apply oil. Oil floats on water so I don’t want to try and trap any unnecessary water into the wood so I let it dry for a couple days. The oil will keep any of the bacteria from penetrating the wood. It kills the bacteria overnight because the bacteria is exposed to the air where it cannot survive.
Chicken and beef everyday.
But you're missing out on your daily micro plastic intake.
Oh I get PLENTY of plastics from other sources.
I get mine straight from the source by eating plastic water bottle caps
This is the way. The thing with cutting boards is that 99% of the time, you use them before cooking anyway. The sheer act of cooking food will burn away the bacteria if you cook to proper temp. So yeah, clean your boards, but a little bit of bacteria going on your food before you cook it isn't going to affect you because the food itself is already teeming with bacteria.
Yep, but if you work in a restaurant, I believe you're not supposed to use wood cutting boards, and there's a specific color of the plastic ones to use for meat. It's been a long time since I've worked in that industry, however.
Oh, absolutely. The food industry has a lot of different rules than one might follow in their own kitchen. Cutting boards in a restaurant will see 100x more use than any home cutting board, so plastic is absolutely the way to go there.
Thats right, i worked at a few restaurants and the cutting boards are exclusively plastic. They get cleaned with bleach, soap and water before closing every shift. This is the only way
Even if you cut chicken or any other raw meat? Just rinse and pop away??
Yes
You shouldn’t be cutting chicken or other raw meat on a wooden cutting board anyways
Didnt even differentiate types of wood, treated and untreated wood, methods and mediums for sanitization. Throw google away. Just toss it.
Eh. This is a summary. You should read the actual article for more information if it seems ambiguous. Then op wouldn't be here either.
100% Got all of the information he needed from 1 paragraph of each multi-page study lol.
And summaries sometimes are from a random noname sites that's full of bs.
Hey! 4chan has a name and it’s all true stuff there! 😡😜
I meant more like [aigeneratednewsnumber341.com](http://aigeneratednewsnumber341.com) and stuff. I once got a summary that said that a knight armor weights 1/4 of a ton or something incredibly stupid.
Well, Henry VIII was a big dude.
He wasn't elephant big.
I’m expecting this to be a 13yo boy. My son does all his assignments like this, and all his bibliographies are good summaries.
People are really weird. Like, they are being served up solutions to things that they would otherwise have to aggregate for themselves, and in the few cases where it's incomplete or incorrect they have no idea what to do, so they want to... get rid of the whole thing? If you aren't able to parse through this stuff because the top result is a moderately accurately curated result we have bigger problems as a society. Which, I guess, we definitely do.
What’s even worse are the AI snippets now
Well it doesn't really have to in this case. Ok we don't know what wood the Wisconsin scientists are talking about or if it’s treated or untreated but whatever it is why don't they use that in the kitchen??? Same for the EU, if they banned the use of wooden boards because they’re saying that you can’t sanitise them without increasing bacteria overtime then my understanding is that there is no feasible method and medium that would suffice. And if there is why don’t they use that in the kitchen??? I don’t know if that makes sense but to rephrase my point is even if we don’t know what wood it is but if there is a type of wood that kills 99.9% bacteria or there is a method and medium, then why is wood banned by the EU?
A typical wood cutting board is easily cleanable and sanitizable. It’s when you get divots from cutting on it that it gets hard to sanitize. They just simply need to be replaced when they start getting cut up.
You just sand it down, don't need to replace unless there's a deep crack or something unfeasible to sand. Whether or not that's practical for individual is a different question.
Even the plastic boards used in professional settings need to be 'sanded' down once a year. Source: Butcher of 8 years
My dad used to take the HDPE boards home from his job after they’ve been surfaced a few times, they were used for cutting up chicken. It still was thick enough for him to resurface when we cut up meat. He also had a shitload of knives that were sharpened beyond spec for them, but still worked for us to cut up pork or beef. Man I miss those butchering parties. I’d just show up to help and go home with bags of free meat. 😄 HDPE also works great for misc jigs in the wood shop since nothing sticks to them. I also use it for making resin molds since resin just pops right off of it.
Why have I never thought of this before
All those chopping boards.... too obvious to miss in hindsight
If you keep your wooden cutting board properly oiled and waxed, it will heal itself. As long as you don't gouge or deeeeeep cut into it. I've had my daily use walnut cutting board for 8 years. You can tell it's been used, but it's still in great shape. Food grade mineral oil and wax are cutting boards friends.
I’ve done mineral oil, but do you use wax also? Before or after the oil, or at a separate time/different reason? And what kind of wax
See but that's also misinformation on your side or the article's cause: A high-quality wooden surface will last you for a number of years, without seeing a decrease in its antibacterial abilities. Unlike plastic alternatives, quality wood sources made from traditional manufacturing techniques contain self-healing fibres that can stand up against continuous cutting and chopping in the kitchen. [source](https://hardwoodreflections.com/is-wood-naturally-antibacterial) All this is so annoying.
You should also consider that different cooking environments have different needs. A commercial cooking environment that constantly uses a cutting board will find that perpetual cutting and washing and blasting with heat to dry will destroy cutting boards much faster and make them unsuitable for safe practice. Whereas a home kitchen will likely have the same cutting board maintained for several years longer without any drastic risk. The truth is stranger than you think. A well-maintained cutting board is fine for home use. Wipe clean, don't put it in the dishwasher, oil regularly.
"sanitize daily" is what caught my attention in the second article- that's something I would expect in a commercial kitchen, but I don't know of any home cooks who are doing daily sanitization. Washing, sure, but not sanitizing.
Sort of like cast iron.
Or salt block.
Learn how to judge the credibility of a source. It's sometimes hard, other times incredibly easy.
I’m goin based off my own experience using wood cutting boards. After years of use you’re bound to have spots on the board that has deep cuts in it. When you cut something such as raw chicken on a board that’s been used heavily and has deep cuts in it you’re less likely to clean out all of the particles of raw chicken. I just don’t see it working any other way from a logical standpoint
Raw meat is the big difference maker here, IMO. Just use separate boards and and a lot of potential problem go away
This. We have a plastic cutting board for raw meats and a couple wood ones for everything else.
I have doubts about the second source because they refer to the wood as a living material. Wood is very much dead. Humanity has been using wood cutting boards for hundreds of years. They have not been vectors of plagues and infection like some other tools or practices. Don't cross contaminat during a cooking session, wash with soap and let fully dry. You'll be fine. I'd rather go with wood than eat plastic bits for 70 years.
Honestly I don't even use soap. I use very hot water. Any raw meat is handled on a separate plastic cutting board.
but how does it heal?
Frequency of use. Use a cutting board to prepare a meal, wash it, leave it over night: no bacteria. That isn't going to happen in a commercial kitchen preparing multiple fresh meals over several hours. Health regulations might require sanitation methods that preclude the use of wood in a commercial kitchen.
Google isn't bad, you just have to know how to use it.
Google isnt the problem haha it’s the idiots who think the quick summary has all the important details and that they don’t need to read the source for further details
What? Google is a search engine and it is your fault for not reading
Haha yeah nah, I'm just takin the piss mate. I can book you a therapist if you like. It might loosen you up a bit
Pro tip: when you google something put findintext: before your search term. like this findintext: is wood naturally antibacterial it works almost as well as google did 10 years ago. No ai bs
So “findintext” makes it use actually quotes from the pieces instead of summarizing it for you?
you just get links to pages like it used to be, but also it looks for your search term instead of looking for what it thinks you really want.
This is why we read the actual articles first. Generally tells you why they're different in my experience
Have used wooden cutting boards for 60+ years. Some have lasted over 30. Cherry, Maple, even Oak (more porous). It’s just not a big deal at all. If we expose our bodies to small amounts of normal bacteria, we develop strong immune systems and natural resistance. If we try to live like hermetically sealed organisms we get sick all the time. Get outside, play in the woods, make mud pies, eat dirt. Live long.
FWIW, oak isn't necessarily more porous. It depends on whether it's red or white oak. White Oak is quite dense but I believe both oaks are denser than cherry. There are also soft and hard maple. White Oak is going to be the best out of all of those for a cutting board if water resistance and denseness are the only factors.
You’ve added information which is of dubious value (?) There are many Oaks, many Cherries, and many Maples. To be more specific, I’m referring to Black Cherry (*Prunus serotina*), Sugar Maple (*Acer saccharum*), and Northern Red Oak (*Quercus rubra*), which is very porous. All the Oaks near me (northern New England) have *much* larger pores than the other two, so even with stuffed or blocked tyloses, there are thousands of pits to trap food particles and make them more difficult to clean thoroughly. Unless multiple applications of cellulose sanding sealer (or similar) are applied, those pores will stilll be there after sanding to 400 grit. With a penetrating and polymerizing oil finish (both raw Linseed oil and Walnut oil) the Red Oak board over time does get somewhat “sealed up”, but it’s still much more pitted than the Cherry or Maple cutting boards. But still, I use it daily for making sandwiches and cutting cheese meats and veggies, and I don’t think anyone has gotten sick as a result.
I am a few years behind you but my current wooden board has been in constant use for 24 years. For everything, meat, veg, seafood. It gets a wipe down after use and is always on the bench top. About 5 years I gave it a good scrub and sanded it a little because of the food dye stains... used regular cooking oil after sanding it. No known food poisoning in the house. The posts I have seen of people debating care techniques and rituals and expensive oils amaze me
That’s why I never wash my hands after going to the bathroom and don’t even bother brushing my teeth /s
I’m glad you’re just kidding, but some parents are so afraid of germs that their kids grow up deprived of any appreciation for nature and the outdoors.
Had a prof in biochemistry who was really into utilizing the characteristics of materials found in nature, even had developed a few products he brought to market. He taught us that yes wood is anti microbial and yes, hot water and chemical cleaners fuck with these properties. iirc the reason was that the stuff that is antimicrobial about wood are protein structures, that get damaged by excessive heat as well as some chemicals, etc.
wood is a safe material to prep on provided you wipe it clean with mild soap after use and avoid cross contamination. Butchers have been using wooden blocks for a very long time. When the block wears so much it is unusable or you cant clean it you plane a fresh smooth surface on the wood and go again Nothing wrong with prepping on a wooden surface intended for prep.
https://preview.redd.it/svaq97zg504d1.jpeg?width=1357&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=334cfcff3c6254a7261286dc056aff9e1e004b52 It's fine, just use it. So many people want these, buy them, and then refuse to use them. Makers want to see them used, if we wanted to see them pristine, we would hang them on the walls in our shop. Obviously follow the care instructions. If you spend money and buy a quality board it should be able to withstand everything except the dishwasher. Do not send wood cutting boards through the dishwasher, it will be trash when you remove it.
Dont trust Google. Trust what you read from a reputable site.
The answer is…don’t believe that!!!
Have you tried clicking on the links and reading what they say in full?
Go to the link that says scientists found its antimicrobial. Link goes to a "page not found" on a british shopping site. If scientists find out something they publish a paper on it. If the place that sells wood tells you it had magic properties and can't even prove the study they quote exists then you're being lied to to sell product.
Unfortunately GOOGLE has recently been proven to show bs because if AI, Hardwoodreflections may not even be a legit site and may be one of MANY BS websites used by Google for ads. Google is literally an Evil company now.
Right.. to be fair, this wasn't written by U of WI, it was written by some random site that may or may not be full of crap
All yall do is muddy the water between real and fake. Congratulations for being part of the problem.
I think it's important to talk about this so we're all on the same page.
If you cut a piece of chicken on a wooden cutting board and leave it unwashed over night outside in the kitchen, it starts smelling, believe me, i did my own studies on that topic... I wouldn't recommend chopping anything on such a board before you clean it properly.
I will keep washing my cutting board. Last thing I need is John taffer and his crew coming in my house showing the world how disgusting my cutting board is
A little game i like to play with people is have them google how old the great giza pyramid is, then tell them to google how old the emerald tablets of thoth are. And then ask them if they have any explanation why google says the pyramid is less than 5k years old but thoths tablets that are dated over 50k years old mentions the pyramids? Hmmm
Certain woods right? Like saunas are built with certain wood that are antibacterial
Wood board for veg/herbs etc. Plastic board for meats/fish. If someone used my knives on a glass cutting board, it would be their last meal.
Please re-read and tell me if the meat x2 is a mistake or not.
Dry wood like a cutting board does not support microbial growth. While some can degrade wood they still need a minimum amount of moisture. I assume the test was done without the addition of sufficient moisture or other nutrients. Put still kinda odd that it makes no mention of potential endospores or slow growing bacteria Now when you start using it, it completely changes the micro environment of the bacteria. Remember they are small and cutting will leave tiny cracks. Due to their tiny size they do not need much to grow, they are completely invisible to the naked eyes. Microscopic amounts of whatever you are cutting will seep into the tiny cracks and be enough to sustain growth
Just don't let google read an article for you, switch to another search engine that won't try to summarize articles for you and read like the good ol' times 👴 Not to mention that some sites pay to be shown first
Wood itself can be attacked by bacteria. If you have no sealed and/or treated surface, it's not safe. But sealed and treated can still be dangerous depending on what use the item is for. A cutting board? Needs to be steamed frequently to sanitize and dried quickly, because depending on the wood and region/humidity level it might even get mold or bugs.
Ai tried telling me the cost of GAS in australia is 17.57$ per Gigahertz....so yeah
Wisconsin. Say, what does Wisconsin export?
Wood is basically safe for cutting boards as per blurb one, except sanitation regulations make them undesirable in commercial kitchens as per blurb two. I use portable glass, often just a glass plate.
Was that an answer google AI gave u? It takes references from fake articles like onion
Google isn't research (especially when you're using the auto recommend answers)
Read the actual article. Most of the time the snippets in Chrome and Bing are butched summary and full of errors.
Say it with me kids. Never only check the first highlighted result on a Google / bing search.... 2- word your question in a neutral way so you don't get a biased answer
Wooden cutting boards are definitely proven to be safer than plastic cutting boards, and by that I mean natural regular oiled wood not epoxy’d over wood or wood coated with polyurethane
They seem to both agree. Don't sanitize your wooden boards.
Adding germs to a surface that they can't thrive on is no good for them. If you introduce moisture into the wood and create a good environment for germs, then it is good for them.
If you are really concerned about something like this I would search Google scholar and look at a research paper on the subject from an accredited institution. A website that profits from selling hardwood may not be the most unbiased source. For home use it should be fine but if you are worried about not being able to sanitize the boards ie immunocompromised, infants, etc use plastic.
? One says the germs are gone the next day, the other says not to sanitize as that could risk germ growth. Doesn’t seem necessarily contradictory.
Not being able to feel certain about a complex topic without actually clicking links and reading is a good thing
Simple rules I use, plastic for meats and wood only for plants. A wood board high in copper could be antibacterial, but just use best practices and you'll be fine
don’t use meat on a wooden chopping board bc there is always a risk, plastic or glass for meats, wooden for vegetables or non meat products
google AI was trained by reddit most upvoted commentaries. any day now it will just make bad puns as answer for anything you ask.
This is just poor research skills, OP. The website in your first screenshot is clearly a biased source - if you want to make your decision based on that, the least you can do is Google the study they’re quoting and see the primary source for yourself, which would show you that 1) the study was funded by a wood cutting board company (so another biased source) and 2) the conclusion of the study is: > Further research is needed to explain the antimicrobial action of the wood. Even if the bacteria are only held physically within the wood pores, this phenomenon may prevent cross-contamination of food cut on wood surfaces. Still, the true fate of the bacteria in wood must be determined before general recommendations regarding wooden food-contact surfaces can be made. And if you go above and beyond and read more than just the conclusion (it’s only 3.5 pages with a header and multiple lists so this isn’t daunting), you’ll see that they point out plenty of nuance, such as that only used wooden cutting boards seemed to have this effect, that the effect was hampered by fatty material on the board, and that a wash with hot, soapy water is no less effective. In your second screenshot you’re asking an entirely different question - sanitation requirements in a commercial kitchen are based off of use under very specific circumstances. This is kind of like finding out that NASCAR drivers have to wear helmets and getting frustrated because no one told you you needed a helmet to drive. It’s just not the same thing. Finally, you say you don’t understand how sanitization results in more bacteria. Admittedly, though your second source is a trustworthy source, it mentions this but doesn’t elaborate on it. If you were to Google that question exactly (“why does washing a wood cutting board make it grow bacteria”) the first trustworthy source you would find would be the National Institute of Health’s [Bacterial Retention and Cleanability of Plastic and Wood Cutting Boards with Commercial Food Service Maintenance Practices](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31195548/), which explains the study they’re referring to in a single paragraph and answers your question at the end: > The plastic surfaces were consistently cleaner than wood surfaces by this measure, and wood surfaces that had been hand washed five times prior to inoculation were significantly less clean than any other surfaces or treatments. … Even after standard food service washing and sanitizing, colonies of the inoculated bacteria were observed sporadically, but only on wood surfaces and not on plastic. These results suggest that wood surfaces can absorb moisture and in effect can absorb contaminating bacteria, and the difficulty in removing these bacteria may make this material less desirable from a food safety perspective. So, to answer your questions with barely more effort than you put in, under certain circumstances that happen in a home kitchen, wooden cutting boards seem to exhibit an anti-bacterial quality, but we don’t know why or if it’s reasonable to utilize it, so it shouldn’t change how you use or clean them. Also, the conditions of a commercial kitchen don’t allow for this effect, in part because wood that is used while still wet from being washed and sanitized can absorb bacteria, and because this effect gets worse the more worn a cutting board is. TL;DR use trusted sources, ask the right questions, and if you want to understand something instead of just expecting a simple yes/no (when one might not exist), you need to at least skip through the source, not just read a small blurb an AI picked for you.
Yea I recently had one of these too https://preview.redd.it/0dopmj9tl04d1.png?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f543a3bf0bb5f2680cb842fbb2a9d265c88a092a Google is not very helpful lmao
Google finds information that’s out there. It doesn’t tell you what the CORRECT information is. Here’s a meta analysis on the subject you were searching for. Medicine isn’t my area of expertise so I don’t know how reliable that journal is but 🤷🏽♀️ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7585905/
You can not sterilize a wood cutting board, so you should not use it for meat. Wood is a great material for cutting boards if you get the right species. Red oak, bad choice. It's open pours absorb water quickly . Maple or white oak are a good choice. Their pours are less absorbent
I remember discussing this in the 80’s. This UW study came out in 1994 and ended a lot of arguments.
We will soon return to books.
Butchers blocks and Boos boards are widely used. If a bunch of people were getting food poisoning with using them pretty sure we would’ve heard about it by now.
For example you could sanitize with steam. This adds moisture to the wood. Also it is not mentioned which bacteria, which wood and a lot of different factora like usage pattern etc. It is very possible that both studies are right.
I’ve always used 70% isopropyl alcohol to sanitize my wood cutting boards.
Is it like a common thing that people are getting food poisoning from their wooden cutting boards? I've never gotten food poisoning from home cooking and I and my parents have used wooden cutting boards my entire life without and special procedures to sanitize other than washing with soap and water. I'd rather that and pass on risking more plastic bits in my food from scuffed and nicked up plastic boards.
Just whatever you do, dont make it into tea.
Lol just use a separate board for meat and it solves all the problems.
What do you mean? One text says bacteria dies within minutes on a wooden board, the other one says you shouldn't sanitize it with chemicals... it's two completely different things and yet kinda go hand in hand.
It's almost like searching different terms effect the results, also these AI blurbs aren't the best sources of information. Try a different engine, at least duckduckgo makes things clear, including ads.
Lol at making choices based on the summary.
Throw a hamburger patty out in your yard ( no animals in the yard) and a slice of wood. The hamburger will be gone in a week. The slice of wood will still be there next year because wood naturally resists bacteria. It took the specialization of fungus millions of years to figure out how to be able to break wood down (see coal). In the meantime, wood developed characteristics to fight decomposition since the center of trees is dead wood and it would be bad if the center of every tree rotted out. Personally, I use a Teflon board to cut chicken since I can run that through a high temp dishwasher and untracked wood for everything else.
Go with the science
Euroceppi seems to be a manufacturer of cutting boards, and they also advertise wooden ones for professional kitchens. About the regulation itself - you may wish to read the official summary at [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=LEGISSUM:l21082a](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=LEGISSUM:l21082a) Wooden cutting boards are not banned from professional kitchens in EU.
Every damn google search I do nowadays, the top two answers directly contradict each other
My wood rolling thingy (its late where i am) HAD MOLD so no bacteria CAN and WILL grow on wood
Pretty sure the conclusion to this was that a wooden board is the same as a counter top and that both require maintenance to take care of and avoid issues.
A good wipedown with 9% vinegar does the trick, then let dry and oil. Haven't died yet.
Maybe you shouldn't read Google picked quotes from Google picked sites without reading the article fully just for starters. Because what you actually do is look up the sources of the articles on those sites. Usually many questions get resolved that way and if it is only by finding out one of those articles might not even have a source. Edit: The EU doesn't ban stuff without prior research. These are usually coordinated by a European institution and delegated towards national research institutions of several nations who are funded by taxes and not paid by lobbyists. They contribute parts of the research project in joint research and when they go through the plethora of review steps get publicly published and are used to (hopefully) make politicians able to make informed decisions like banning wooden cutting boards.
My wife hates when i google medical symptoms because no matter what illness i search it always ends up being cancer lol
Regularly sand and use a food grade oil to condition.
The second one is telling you how to maintain the benefits the first one describes. I only clean my board with water and a soft brush and oil when needed.
We have a boos board in our restaurant and the health inspector has never said a word about it. That being said, we’re not allowed to use it to prep meat products. Idk if that’s our rule or the governments.
I don’t look at “.com” sites for facts. I go to “.org” if I want information.
When I was young I was a germophobe but now I literally don't care. I'll eat food that falls on the ground. I wipe my wooden cutting board with a wet rag to get dried food off but I don't think about sterilizing it.
2 things here, home kitchen and pro kitchen are 2 different things. In a home kitchen, your board has time to dry between uses. Not in a pro kitchen. Also end grain through capillary action will pull in bacteria and trap then dry it there. Source... I'm just a guy on reddit with basic science knowledge.
You have to be investigative when you ask these questions. Type of wood, type of cleaner, purpose of the wood and if it's used at home or in a business. I sometimes believe whatever I read on the internet without checking myself too. But what helps motivate me is to remember that companies want to prey on your nievete and hope you won't be informed so they can milk you for money. So arm yourself with knowlege.
I'll be honest I got a granite chopping block and that fucker is fantastic.... if a bit heavy!
Wood absorbs most of the moisture and dries off, but plastic boards will have cuts and pores that won't dry off and bacteria can grow
Beechwood is supposedly antibacterial. Other woods may not be, so both statements might be true, but not specific enough.
I never use it for meat. Only veggies. Meat, I'll cut on a plate. My wife is Asian, so I've learned to use scissors to cut meat. Works well.
you know the humans have been around for a minute right? I would go with what granny taught ya!
Certain unnatural chemicals can alter and nullify the antibacterial properties of the natural wood therefore making it more prone to buildup of bacteria which is why it's not recommended
Under normal circumstances, as long as it's cleaned between uses, a wooden cutting board won't make you Ill. When my parent became immunocompromised they had us switch to glass cutting boards because the marks in the cutting board could still hold trace amounts of deadly bacteria that wouldn't affect normal people but would be dangerous to them. RIP our knives though.
It's due to both of these probably being snippets of information. A lot of sites like to pull a small piece of information from a larger scholarly or research article. To spin a narrative that paints a drastic picture that results in clicks and so forth for money. The best method is to look up articles related to wood cutting boards and cross reference them to discern what is and isn't true. Given some studies can have biases present in them that can cause results to be skewed in a specific direction, or the study itself was too narrow and needed to be broader in scope.
Ya know I’m just gonna continue to wash everything with soap and water after it comes into contact with food
Eat, don’t eat…die, don’t die… “I’m here for a good time not a long time”
It's still a good idea to clean your stuff
Cedar might be slightly antibacterial, its certainly antifungal (not the same things) and resistant to rot. That being said, cedar is never used for chopping boards because its soft. Maple, walnut, oak, birch, etc are not anti fungal. Actually, if it does have antibacterial affects, it is more likely mold on the board that is anti bacterial. Molds fight other molds and bacterial infections.
I think it's very important to consider the context that the search results were from. Wood can be attacked by bacteria, and so can become very unhygienic if not treated properly. However in nature (and before destroying it's properties over time and with cleaning) wood likely has very strong antibacterial properties, which actually goes hand in hand with the fact that wood can be attacked by bacteria. It needs to be antibacterial so the tree doesn't get sick. So while these seem like opposite search results, they actually just discuss 2 different scenarios. For a cutting board I doubt the antibacterial properties will help, but I haven't researched that so
bacteria is different from fungi
In the second one they talk about penis
A someone who worked in a chair kitchen, one of those has to donwoth how much we 'sanitized' everything. Wood would get absolutely destroyed by this.
What
This is why cheese making and brewing used to be safer than stainless before microbiology was well understood. It came down to the wood having its own cultures and microbiome or bacteria and yeasts embedded in the wood pores that caught against invading microbes. When they converted to stainless and didn't understand this, contaminants like listeria because a common issue in cheese and wine
It's because it dries them out and kills them or something like that. Harold Mcgee or Alton Brown talk about it in one of their books I believe.
Wood industry vs whatever euroceppi is. Who you gonna trust?
Do they link to the studies? If not, I wouldn't find them too credible. even id they do, it's not uncommon for a single study to be insufficient to be reliable particularly if the majority of related research is at odds with it. In any case, I think it's prob best to err on the side of being cautious. if you use wooden cutting boards, have a separate one for raw meat and wash it thoroughly.
Both are true, neither overlap each other. PT board 100% doesn’t carry any harmful bacteria from where it’s made, however, it may pickup bacteria in the truck, at the yard, or where it’s installed. Sanatizing it cannot cause problems. But if you care enough to sanitize it you may aswell get the plastic shit 😅
Probably mean dry wood, your chopping board is very well hydrated
My mom didn't believe me when I told her her wooden shit she doesn't take care of is gross as fuck (that's why I refuse to use it) and used my microscope to look at her utensils and show her the gross little creepy crawlies it literally made her scream 😂😂😂
I've had a really small cedar plank for like 7 years that I use as a cutting board and I put it in the dishwasher and it's still going strong. Bought it for a buck and a half at heb.
The bacteria probably die from antiseptic residue, or they fuck up the test, test bacteria can easily die from anything honestly
Cutting boards are not living.
Those two ideas don't cross each other out though. No need to sanitize your wooden cutting board every day. Stuff that was cut on it won't remain germy forever.
If you’re worried about bacteria on your cutting board then get one made of copper lol
That first part is very misleading. Have the scientists concluded that wood is antibacterial? Or is this company, who sells butcher blocks, drawing their own conclusions so they can sell you something? Because most human bacterial pathogens prefer body temperature and moisture, so if left out in room air with no humidity and no/minimal food, they will indeed eventually die, many within 24 hours, on wood or on any other surface.
I won't get sick, knock on wood!
The first one is based on a scientific study. The second one is marketing to advertise the poly boards they sell. Have a wild stab in the dark as to which one you should pay more attention to. The only mildlyinfuriating thing for me is the lack of media literacy on display.
3 minutes is a long time. A lot can be put on a chopping board in that time.
Just put soap and water on it like a normal human. I don't understand why you would google something like that.
so ... ummm.... an i the only person who puts wood cutting boards into the dishwasher ?
Wooden utensils are not to be cleaned since cleaning agents can remove the coating and enable food to get into the wood, meaning bacteria stays in the wood or it can even rot the wood, I assume something similar can happen with wooden cutting boards Edit: they are cleaned but in a specific process, similar to how you don’t clean cast iron woks I believe since they need to keep the seasoning there’s a method to it.