The Best Food-Safe Finish May Be None at All - FineWoodworking
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Seri Robinson, a professor of wood anatomy, agrees with the marketers of "food-safe" finishes that bacteria-especially salmonella, listeria, and E. coli-are a threat to human health. But, Robinson says, those finishes can undermine the natural antimicrobial properties of wood. If an unfinished wooden cutting board or spoon is rinsed after use and allowed to dry on all sides, the drying action will pull bacteria deep into the wood, where it will be trapped and die. A finish will keep bacteria close to the surface, where it will multiply.

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.

  • HewlettHackard
    4·
    3 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).