If you have a kitchen and are an avid amateur cook, you probably have one thing: a cutting board. This is an indispensable prerequisite for the preparation of food. Probably use a cutting board made of plastic or wood. But what is the best investment? For food safety, the most important aspect of your cutting board is its ease of cleaning and disinfection, says Katie Heil, Certified Food Safety Professional and Editor-in-Chief of StateFoodSafety.com .
The advantages of plastic.
The chief Frank Proto, Labor Director of the Institute of Culinary Education , explains that the plastic cares for the wood. "I like wooden cutting boards, I have a beautiful wooden board that I always use at home," says Proto. "But you have to be careful, for the most part they are difficult to clean."
And they could make you vulnerable to bacteria that cause foodborne diseases. The North Carolina Cooperative Extension states that although some wooden boards have antimicrobial properties, microorganisms can remain trapped and survive in a dormant state. Find out which other items in your kitchen can be secretly poisonous .
Because of this, in many communities, including New York, it's illegal to use wood chopping boards in restaurants or grocery stores, says Proto.
"The plastics that you can really disinfect in your dishwasher while the wood plastics you do not want to put in your dishwasher because the wood swells and absorbs this water," says Proto. Looking for a good cutting board made of plastic? Serious Eats recently tested plastic cutting boards and recommended the kit cutting board Oxo Good Grips .
The advantages of wood.
However, the question of whether wood or plastic cutting boards are safer is not an open and closed question. You may think that plastic cutting boards are easier to clean and disinfect, which makes them logically safer. "Plastic cutting boards, however, tend to be damaged more easily than wooden boards," says Heil. "Once you scratch the plastic cutting board, the pathogens can hide more easily and it's harder to completely cleanse them."
Researchers comparing the amount of bacteria on plastic cutting boards with that on wood cutting boards found that new or used wood cutting boards contained fewer bacteria after cleaning with cutting boards. Plastic, explains Heil. Another study showed similar results. Discover other everyday objects that are dirtier than toilet seats .
In general, wood is harder than plastic, so the scars on knives are not that deep. It is also important from what kind of wood the cutting board is made, says Heil. The FDA recommends finding a fine-grained hardwood such as maple that is more resistant to water damage.
The best way to clean wood and plastic cutting boards.
When Porto uses his wooden cutting board at home, he rubs it with kosher salt, if it is really spotty, then he cleans it with hot soapy water. Then it dries very fast, he says. Wooden planks should also be regularly treated with harmless minerals for food or butcher's oil to prevent them from drying out. Here are some additional tips for cleaning a wood chopping board .
An easy way to disinfect wood and plastic cutting boards? Add a tablespoon of bleach to a gallon of water, flood liquid, rinse with clear water and dry dry, the USDA recommends .
If you still do not know which one to use, why not try both? Ben Chapman, a food safety researcher from North Carolina, recommends using plastic boards to cut meat and wooden boards for fruit, vegetables, bread and cheese. Just make sure you clean and replace them when scratched. Now that you know how to properly clean your chopping boards, discover the 50 kitchen faults that you no longer have to commit .
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