Wood or plastic?
The other day I received an intriguing news article from a family member. The article, entitled “Don’t chuck that wood cutting board”, promotes the merits of using a wood, rather than plastic, cutting board.
Basically, the article explains in detail the study done by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, proving that wood cutting boards actually harbor less bacteria than plastic. Even when they covered the cutting boards with millions of bacterial specimens (salmonella, listeria, e coli), within several hours the wood board was tested and found to be free of 99.9% of the bacteria!!! In sharp contrast, all of the bacteria on the plastic cutting boards survived.
They repeated this experiment over and over, in many different ways, but always coming to the same conclusions- for some reason, the bacteria were no longer present in the wood, yet they remained in the plastic.
Although I couldn’t find the exact article (mine was clipped from a small, local paper), here is a link to a similar article written by one of the researchers. If anyone knows of a link to any other information about this topic, I would be very interested!
I’m curious to hear what other people are using? I’ve still got my plastic but now I’m considering looking for a nice wooden board. Anyone else?
Be sure to go visit Tammy for some other great kitchen tips!
I have a plastic one and a glass one. My plastic one I goes through the dishwasher at least once a day though!
The glass one, I LOVE because it has a picture of Vincent VanGogh’s Starry Night imbedded in it. My husband hates it because he has to sharpen the knives more often – wood cutting boards are better for your knives too!
Thanks for you comment on my blog. Make sure you research the lead kits – Consumer Reports tested several and found they were very unreliable.
I use only wooden boards. In part, I just like the material. I take good care of them, and they get better over time. I would suggest oiling them with mineral oil; it helps maintain them and prevent splitting.