Chopping boaards etc

[ubeaut]

Just pulled this from an article mentioned in Toning and Sealing Thread.

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Finish 4: Nothing
The FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) suggests you use nothing. Raw wood provides one of the best food preparation surfaces known to man.

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Funny..... I've been going on about this for years. Good to see a government department somewhere using their brains and not forcing people into using those disgustingly unhealthy plastic things like they tried to do here.

[Alastair]

Well done Neil!

Confirms what the alternate lobby has been saying for years, (not to mention several chefs of my aquaintance)

[HappyHammer]

End grain up or not on a chopping board?

HH.

[jmk89]

I have looked on the FDA website and there is no sign of this advice - they still seem to be recommending the use of plastic (which is then put through the dishwasher)

[Rookie]

I have looked on the FDA website and there is no sign of this advice

It says

"But with little effort, plastic, a hard wood, such as maple, or any nonporous surface can be used safely if used properly"

so they're not precluding it.

End grain up or not on a chopping board?

I've used both end grain and long grain boards, and I cook a lot, and the only difference I've found is that the end grain boards are better for chopping, like with a cleaver. For cutting/slicing, long grain is fine and much easier to keep clean.

Without trying to turn this into a plastic/wood discussion (there's plenty of that here already), I've always used wood. I hate the plastic boards. They are light, they don't stay flat, and they slide around the benchtop. That's dangerous when you are using knives as sharp as I keep mine.

And let's not even talk about glass cutting surfaces.

Good find Neil

[jmk89]

It says

"But with little effort, plastic, a hard wood, such as maple, or any nonporous surface can be used safely if used properly"

so they're not precluding it.

I agree, but that quote doesn't say:

"Raw wood provides one of the best food preparation surfaces known to man."

I would like to see the more definitive statement that Neil referred to - especially if it compares wood with plastic.

This is very important - I would like to win a bet with SWMBO; she insists that the authorities say that plastic is more hygenic than wood and I say that such a view is illogical because of the research that shows that bacteria are killed by the wood itself (because wood as a living substance has to protect itself against bacteria whle inert substances do not need such protection).

So if the FDA reference can be located this would help.

[Alastair]

Have a look here:

http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/fa...ttingboard.htm

There are a number of similar papers to be found.

Regards

[bystander]

Have a look here.

http://ecofurn.com.au/anti-bacterial.html

I realise this is a commercial company pushing their wares but the report by Southern Cross University from which this is taken is far more detailed but I can't find it at the moment.

Regards

John