For years, chefs, food writers and even food scientists have said that cutting boards made of wood
will absorb bacteria, and plastic ones will allow bacteria to flourish on the surface, lurking in each
tiny cut. Each material has been declared worse in turns. Do plastic cutting boards really harbor more bacteria
than wooden ones? Are wooden ones worse?
It looks like the food scientists at Cook's Illustrated have debunked this food myth, because according to their tests, the answer is "no". They collected the used cutting boards of several of their staff members, but found little bacteria on them. The boards, two wooden and two plastic, were then taken to a lab where they were inoculated with one drop of solution containing millions of bacteria. The bacteria were allowed to sit on the boards for 40 minutes, but after washing the boards with hot, soapy water, fewer than 100 bacteria from the original sample remained on each type of board.
While bacteria remained on each board, the amount was small and nearly equal for both materials. This shows that it doesn't matter what the board is made out of, but how you care for it. After each use, particularly if raw meat has touched the board, cleanse it with warm, soapy water. The FDA recommends sanitizing your boards in a solution of 1 tablespoon bleach to 1 gallon water.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-16-2006 @ 10:40PM
Richard Siemens said...
UC Davis has also conducted research into cutting boards. They were mainly concerned about Escherichia coli and Salmonella.
Their conclusion is that wooden boards and new plastic boards were both easy to clean and disinfect. Old, deeply grooved plastic boards are hard to clean.
A summary of there research can be found at http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/docliver/Research/cuttingboard.htm
Personally, I'm looking forward to a kitchen large enough for a freestanding butcher-block (if I can convince my wife).
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1-16-2006 @ 10:45PM
Richard Siemens said...
I don't know where the extra spaces in my post came from or why the link has some extra characters at the end. Let me try again.
http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/docliver/Research/cuttingboard.htm
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1-17-2006 @ 8:13AM
Punisher2k said...
I recall a study that showed the wooden boards were better because the wood still contained some enzymes that would break down the bacteria. I wish I knew where I saw that.
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1-17-2006 @ 12:33PM
jason swan said...
you can also sanitize with vinegar according to this...
http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Cutboard.html
and I for one am much more comfortable slinging vinegar around than bleach....
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