Thread: Wood identification... ok for chopping boards?

I can’t find the CSIRO study. I did manage to find a 1993 University of Wisconsin study that compared wood and plastic chopping boards. It found the wood to be superior in terms of prohibiting the transfer of E Coli because the bacteria were drawn below the surface of the wood.

Can anyone point me at the CSIRO study?

Originally Posted by IanW

Graeme, I think you are correct insofar as the sorts of plastics used for better quality cutting boards are the high-density polypropylenes, but the cheaper plastic boards are not necessarily the same stuff. ...

We use both wood & plastic in our house....

Cheers,

Thanks, Ian.

I trust that you are not implying that the el cheapo plastics are "safer" than the HDPE's.

Originally Posted by jack620

I can’t find the CSIRO study. ...

CSIRO website is difficult to navigate.

Here are a couple of old threads on the topic:

end-grain cutting boards and bacteria

WOOD KILLS BACTERIA

(I could not get the embedded links to CSIRO to work.)

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

.....I trust that you are not implying that the el cheapo plastics are "safer" than the HDPE's.

Definitely not Graeme. What I was trying ti get across in my post is that neither wood nor plastic is "safe" if you don't follow some simple hygiene procedures.

Cheers,

I am very very new to this scene, but the wood in question looks very similar to Tassie Oak (Take that with a grain of salt)

Whilst I also noticed a reply about sealing the chopping board with oil and then wax, I get the oil part but using bees wax after, does it "crack" when it is used after the application? I know it would be applied then wiped off, but there would always be residual wax (Hence the protection) Does this occur or am I just over thinking it?

Sorry if its a dumb question, again, I am very very new to it all

Wow, this thread is still engaging people. Battlebosun the thing is that the finish is purely cosmetic. I have been using wooden chopping boards for more than forty years with no finish. but they are separated into one for fruit and veg, one for garlic and onions, and one for meat and fish. After use they are given a quick scrub under running hot water and put in a drainer to air dry. A drop of oil may make them look better and the residue will feed the wood but I would never put wax on a chopping board that will just sit on the surface being gluggy. As for the sanitary aspect of wooden boards my understanding is that wood fibre has a wicking effect so that very small material like bacteria are drawn down into the cell structure and dehydrated and disintegrated whereas the same material embeded in a tiny scratch in a plastic board is actually protected from drying out and could remain alive to contaminate the surface as soon as the board is used again.

Originally Posted by Toymaker Len

........ but I would never put wax on a chopping board that will just sit on the surface being gluggy.

You should try it. A quality beeswax does not "sit on the surface being gluggy" at all. Far from it. With an end-grain board, the beeswax absorbs into the surface of the board, allowing you to buff it to a clean, shiny finish.
I use board oil with a beeswax finish on all my boards and have never had any issue with the finish. The one on our kitchen bench has been in daily use for over two years now and the finish still looks as good as the day I made it. The only cleaning it gets is a wipe over with a warm, wet cloth every day.