this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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Woodworking

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Conventional wisdom regarding finishing cutting boards and other food prep surfaces is to coat them heavily with mineral oil and/or a food safe paste wax to "seal" and/or "condition" them. Seri Robinson asserts otherwise, her research has shown that any finish applied to wood decreases its natural anti-microbial properties.

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[–] HewlettHackard@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago

The science on plain wood being safe has been around for quite a while. I remember reading a study many years ago where some scientists mashed bacteria all over the surface of a wood cutting board, rinsed it, dried it, and then tried everything they could to get the bacteria to transfer to fresh meat (including trying to pound the meat into the board with a mallet) and the meat remained uncontaminated. So, it seems like the safest option is a single unglued plank of wood.

Glue joints don’t act like wood, so presumably that makes bamboo act less like plain wood safety-wise.

The problem with plastic is that the knife marks can retain bacteria (which, unlike wood, the plastic doesn’t kill).