Cutting Board Safety – Wood or Plastic?

This question always seems to surface when one is looking to purchase a new cutting board.  With all of the exposure to food borne illness everyone is looking at doing their due diligence in suppressing this exposure.  One would think that a plastic cutting board would naturally be easier to clean and disinfect than wood.  But wait!  Not necessarily true.

Wood is the Safe Choice

First of all let’s look at the current wisdom on Cutting Board Safety.  The food expert in my household is my daughter, a board certified Dietician with a Masters degree in Food and Nutrition.   She says that everyone should have at least two and preferably three cutting boards;    One board for poultry, one for other meats and fish, and the third for fruits and vegetables.  With multiple cutting boards and using them for specific purposes you will be less likely to cross contaminate other foods and avoid any spread of bacteria to the other foods.   However if you do only have one cutting board then you would need to clean it thoroughly between each use if preparing more than one type of meat or meat and vegetables.  Please see my web page on “Care and Maintenance” for proper cleaning and disinfecting of your cutting board.  But let’s get back to the question at hand—which is better—WOOD or PLASTIC??

For some time, there was a generally accepted Cutting Board Safety concept that plastic is better than wood when it comes to harboring bacteria and that the grooves cut into plastic would be easier to clean and therefore less likely to pass on harmful bacteria.  The only problem with this assumption is, exactly that it is an assumption.  Studies have shown that wood actually harbored fewer bacteria for the following reasons:

1.       Plastic is not water-absorbent so the cut marks stay wet longer and harbor bacteria growth  easier.

2.      Wood is water-absorbent, so it actually dries faster and will impede bacteria growth and survival.

3.      Wood, as it dries out actually retards  bacteria growth.

Cutting Board Safety Study

Dr. Dean O. Cliver, who is the University of California (Davis) Food Safety Professor Emeritus, has studied this issue for more than a decade.  In doing some scientific studies, first intended to develop a means of disinfecting wooden cutting surfaces in the home,  Dr. Cliver came up with some interesting results.  His research team discovered that wooden cutting boards absorbed bacteria into the interior of the board, where, as the wood dried out, the bacteria died off.   Even older wood cutting boards with deep knife cuts had low levels of detectable bacteria, similar  to what was found with new boards.  Dr. Cliver’s research found that the bacteria never reappeared on the surface of the wooden cutting boards even after it has multiples of cut marks used by a very sharp blade.

And while plastic cutting boards can be cleaned and disinfected to the point where few bacteria remain, the same cannot be said for old knife-scarred plastic boards.  With plastic boards, Dr. Cliver and his team found they could still find bacteria in the knife grooves, and he goes on to state in his research that dishwashers did not eliminate the problem.  The bacteria did not die and was re-deposited on other surfaces in the dishwasher.  He goes on to state that when they tested old plastic boards disinfected with cleaners such as chlorine bleach, they still found residual bacteria nestled in the grooves.

Dr. Clivers experiments have been questioned by government scientists but after replicating his research, both the USDA and the FDA have changed their food prep recommendations related to Cutting Board Safety to suggest that maple or other hard wood surfaces be used.  However, please note that any benefit you gain from using wood is negated if you do not clean it properly.

Cutting Board Safety References:

For Dean O. Cliver, PhD:

http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/docliver/Research/cuttingboard.htm

www.rodale.com/cutting-boards-and-bacteria?page=0%2CO

• Ak, N. O., D. O. Cliver, and C. W. Kaspar. 1994. Cutting boards of plastic and wood contaminated experimentally with bacteria. J. Food Protect. 57: 16-22.

Ak, N. O., D. O. Cliver, and C. W. Kaspar. 1994. Decontamination of plastic and wooden cutting boards for kitchen use. J. Food Protect. 57: 23-30,36.

• Staff Report from the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board—www.straightdope.com

IN SUMMARY—FOR CUTTING BOARD SAFETY, GO WITH WOOD!

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