Hardwood vs Plastic: Food borne Illness Safety

First, this research is not my own, which should comfort you greatly. A gentleman by the name of Dean O. Cliver Ph.D and his team are responsible for the research that will be referenced. The experiments themselves are pretty easy to do and Dr. Cliver’s paper states many science fair students repeated his research and got the same results. Please note the wood portion of the research only applies to Hardwoods. Here is what I learned from their work.

The Research 

Their research was originally designed to determine if there was a way to clean hardwood cutting boards to make them as safe as plastic. They put E coli, listeria and other foodborne illness bacteria directly on the surface of 9 different hardwoods, 4 different types of plastic as well as rubber. They would then test at different time intervals and after different methods of cleaning to compare, but what they found surprised everyone. Not only was it possible to clean wooden cutting boards but in fact there was only one way to clean a plastic cutting board after its first use that didn’t make removing the bacteria impossible. Whoa. As someone who for most of my life used plastic cutting boards for raw chicken and other things I consider “high risk” for illness, even when I had wooden ones available, I was also surprised. There did turn out to be one test where plastic takes the cake, hands down, across the board, no questions asked; a brand new plastic cutting board, that has never been cut on, is incredibly easy to clean and remove all the bacteria from. However, once you cut on plastic it becomes impossible to get clean, especially when things like chicken fat are present, unless it is being heat sanitized in a dishwasher after every single use. Well that is really nice, as long as you don’t cut on your cutting board you can get it super clean, easily! That’s not really the best news, let’s come back to that.

So, What Happened With the Hardwood?

It would turn out that a better question would be “what happened to the bacteria we put on this hardwood?” What they discovered is that the pores in the unused hardwoods draw the bacteria down inside of the wood where they die. Like magic, kind of, but nature, which is even more cool in my book. The only way they were able to confirm that the bacteria was there at all was to cut the wood open or use a contraption to force water all the way through the cutting board quickly enough that the bacteria wasn’t already dead. Pretty astonishing because you and I won’t be doing either of those things at our houses. Once the wood absorbs the bacteria, which happens relatively quickly, it will die.

Whatcha Got in Those Knife Marks?

Plastic

Alright so we know that both unused plastic and hardwood cutting boards are easy to clean, but they are unused so they not very relevant to the real world. After cutting on the cutting boards some things changed and some things didn’t. Frankly, if you are using plastic cutting boards you are likely to be cross contaminating food unless you put the plastic board in the dishwasher between each use, not after you make a meal but between each item you cut on it. Once a knife hits the surface of the plastic it creates a mark, inside the mark bacteria can hide and because the plastic has no natural abilities at all (much less the ability to kill bacteria) the bacteria hides there, really effectively, and reproduces. The marks can be very small to very large and a sponge, rag, nor dishwater are sufficient to clean them out regardless of the amount of scrubbing your elbows can muster. The more you use it, the more marks you leave, the more little bacteria nests you’re creating! Yummy.

Hardwood

We learned earlier hardwoods do have some natural abilities, at least before you use them which we already decided was basically worthless. So when we start cutting on the hardwood what happens? Nothing changed. Cutting on the hardwood cutting boards had no effect on its ability to absorb and kill bacteria. No matter the amount of use, because the properties of the wood itself are what capture and kill the bacteria it performed the same way. Absorb, imprison, kill. Does that mean you should just skip washing your end grain hardwood cutting board all together? No, that would not be my recommendation, you should still clean the surface of your hardwood cutting board after every use following the Care Instructions for cleanliness and to keep your piece looking like the day you got it. 

Our Winner

Wood is a natural product, it occurs in nature and has the ability to defend itself. It can help defend you too. In addition, they are more eco friendly, longer lasting and far more beautiful. Check out our End Grain Cutting Boards now and you can say goodbye to your bacteria nests too. Or, for a beautiful serving piece check out Charcuterie Boards which are made from the same hardwoods and possess the same properties!