On May 4, 9:21*am, Robatoy wrote:

Wooden boards need to be looked after with more care and make sure you
use food-safe adhesives and finishes. That also means NEVER to use
peanut oil to finish your board.

There was an interesting segment on (I think) America's Test Kitchen
about wood vs. plastic cutting boards. They took swab samples from
both types of cutting boards and put them into Petri culture dishes
and watched what grew. They took samples from boards that were washed
different ways, brand new boards, and boards that were cleaned and
stored for a few days. All of the boards showed that there was
bacteria living on the boards - including the brand new ones.

The interesting part was that the wood boards that were cleaned and
put away for a while had their bacteria populations actually
decrease. Something in the wood was fighting the bacteria, and
they're not sure what it is.

The plastic boards are almost self-healing and that's a two-edged
sword. It keeps the surface essentially intact for longer, but the
cuts close up around whatever you were cutting and the closed semi-
healed cuts protect the bacteria from the washing.

Wood boards do need to be handled a bit more carefully, but I think
it's a very worthwhile trade off.

R