Wood Cutting Board Safety

[Dave Ogren]

I think that in the past two (2) weeks I saw a post by Leo Van Der Loo about an 1993 study about how safe the wood cutting boards are, no matter how old they are. I have passed that info on and am now being told that that study is flawed. I do not believe that. But I can not find Leo's post that contains, I believe, a PDF of it. Can you please help me find it. I want to prove that it is true.
Thanks in advance for your all of your help as usual.
Dave

[Mel Fulks]

All I know is that ,much more recent than 1993 ,Feds said plastic was safer than wood then changed saying plastic was LESS safe because the cuts close up some and hold moisture while unfinished wood easily dried out. Your tax dollars at work. Don't know if they've changed it again.

[Jamie Donaldson]

I believe it was a Univ. of Wisconsin study that confirmed wooden cutting boards as more sanitary than other board materials like plastic.

[Bob Hamilton]

Here is a link to an article about the study by the scientist who conducted it: http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/docliver/Research/cuttingboard.htm

Bob

[paul vechart]

Dave I found Leo's link to the article...

http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF11/1121B.html

[Mel Fulks]

Bob,thanks for finding that.The question comes up periodically .

[Bernie Weishapl]

Wood is way more sanitary than plastics. My nephew studied at KSU and they also determined the same.

[Dave Ogren]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your help. I will pass this on to the doubting Thomas's that are inquiring about it and are not believers.
Thanks again.

[Tom Winship]

It's odd, isn't it, that a lot of us grew up buying meat from stores and butcher shops that had hard maple butcher blocks and the knives had wooden handles. Worked in one in high school. The butcher block had an uneven top due to use. We scraped it often and washed it.
Didn't know of an instance where someone got sick from the "unsanitary" conditions of those days.

[Dave Fritz]

Good point Tom. While in high school I worked in a meat market and at the end of the day my job was to scrape and wash off the cutting block as well as washing up the meat saws, grinders and other tools. The butchers were real taskmasters, I thank them for teaching me to do it right.

Dave F.

[Dale Coons]

Thought this was an interesting topic--and went and looked at the current Food Safety manual posted at the FDA website (2009). Searched for cutting board, wood, etc, and found that there is no mention of plastic cutting boards anywhere (that I could find), but did find that 'close grained' wood boards in 'good condition' are acceptable. Most of the discussion in various places revolved around cleanliness, using seperate boards for meats and vegetables, making sure that meats cut on the same board are cut in order of ascending cooking temperature, and so forth. I'm actually glad to see this come up again. I have cherry and white oak cutting boards that I love. My wife bought a couple of plastic ones--I don't like them (too thin--too close to the counter when chopping--I rap my knuckles--no comments please...:rolleyes: ). At least I have an argument that mine are better now! Can't say I would have ever thought to try it, but wicker is specifically mentioned as an unacceptable wood cutting surface! Here's the link if you're interested. Download the pdf and you can search for whatever you want:

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodSafety/RetailFoodProtection/FoodCode/FoodCode2009/UCM189448.pdf

Interestingly, I can't seem to find the reference in the Food Safety document "Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. ARS Affirms Plastic Cutting Board Policies. Food Chemical News, December 6, 1993, pp. 56-57" I spent a half hour looking for it. The Food Chemical News site only goes back to 2003, and Google didn't pull anything up. I would have thought something like that would be all over the place.

[Tom Winship]

When I was growing up, any small town had several places where you could have cows or hogs slaughtered and processed. College Station is a town of almost 200K but you have to go out of county to have a home grown beef processed. There are not many places and I understand one of the regulatory issues is they all had to rid themselves of wooden handled knives and get plastic of metal ones. I'm sure there are other issues, but this was one of the ones mentioned.