Chopping boaards etc

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.

Well done Neil!

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

End grain up or not on a chopping board?

HH.

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)

Quote:

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

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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.

Quote:

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End grain up or not on a chopping board?

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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. :no:

Good find Neil

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rookie

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.

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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.

Have a look here:

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

There are a number of similar papers to be found.

Regards

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