How clean is your cutting board?

[GadgetGuy]

Do you give your cutting board a very good cleaning once in a while! Not just talking about the general cleaning that you give it after you use it to help with food prep.

But do you give it the type of cleaning that it would take to keep germs, bacteria & cross-contamination & pathogens at bay? This would involve using a very strong cleaner, as well as a whitener. Bleach!! The best known type of household cleaner. It kills everything! With a little dish liquid.

I watch Bar Rescue a lot, & the chef making a guest appearance on the show. One of the things that he or she would usually do is get a knife & scrape the surface of the board to see how dirty it is. And it is usually laden with dirt, grime & every disease know to mankind!! Jon Taffer would scream at this! Not too long ago, I cleaned my oldest cutting board, just to be on the safe side. I was totally amazed at how clean that it became afterwards!!

But I kept it out to dry, as mold & mildew will set in, causing you to have to clean it that way again!! Be on the safe side, especially if you are working with raw meat, such as chicken, pork or even beef! Wash the board between uses. And bleach it often.

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

This is a great question. When I started being serious about cooking, I naturally got a wooden cutting board. I love using a wooden cutting board: it just feels right. But, after cutting garlic on the board, the smell just wouldn't completely come out...not necessarily after just one time, but after repeated use (since I use a lot of garlic and onion). I'd find that cutting sweet things suddenly became a very bad idea. I would flip the board over, and I'd still smell the garlic. Maybe the best idea would have been to use one board for sweet things and another for savory things.

But, I also became concerned about what happens when cutting raw meat: does the contamination ever really get out of the board? I hear heard of using bleach, but I worried about how safe it would be to bleach a surface and later use it for food, no matter how many times I rinsed it.

That's why I've moved to something like this:

Mine don't have little pictures in the corner, but the usage is pretty obvious: this prevents cross-contamination because you rinse off the board and stick it in the dishwasher after you use it. In point of fact, I tend to use the board that best matches the color of what I want to cut (so, the red board is used for beets, so I don't stain the green one).

These boards don't have the feel of cutting on a wooden board - not even close - but the utility seems to be worth it. On the other hand, maybe I need a new wooden board (or two) for Fathers Day?

 

[MypinchofItaly]

Do you give your cutting board a very good cleaning once in a while! Not just talking about the general cleaning that you give it after you use it to help with food prep.

But do you give it the type of cleaning that it would take to keep germs, bacteria & cross-contamination at bay? This would involve using a very strong cleaner, as well as a whitener. Bleach!! The best known type of household cleaner. It kills everything! With a little dish liquid.

I watch Bar Rescue a lot, & the chef making a guest appearance on the show. One of the things that he or she would usually do is get a knife & scrape the board to see how dirty it is. And it is usually laden with dirt, grime & every disease know to mankind!! Jon Taffer would scream at this! Not too long ago, I cleaned my oldest cutting board, just to be on the safe side. I was totally amazed at how clean that it became afterwards!!

But I kept it out to dry, as mold & mildew will set in, causing you to have to clean it that way again!! Be on the safe side, especially if you are working with raw meat, such as chicken, pork or even beef! Wash the board between uses. And bleach it often.

Great thread. In fact, the cutting board is an accumulator of bacteria and dirt (unwanted).
I have two wooden cutting boards and obviously I clean them carefully after each use and sometimes I take them out of the bathroom. But I don't use chemical cleaners, or at least I try to avoid them. I often use natural agents like lemon or even vinegar (which I also use to clean the refrigerator).

 

[Morning Glory]

I put my plastic boards through the dishwasher which sterilises things. Its the easiest option. The wooden boards are washed sometimes but only used for vegetables. As @MypinchofItaly says, if I use anything on them its vinegar or lemon juice. I don't like the idea of using bleach or disinfectant on a food chopping board - or on anything really.

 

[GadgetGuy]

This is a great question. When I started being serious about cooking, I naturally got a wooden cutting board. I love using a wooden cutting board: it just feels right. But, after cutting garlic on the board, the smell just wouldn't completely come out...not necessarily after just one time, but after repeated use (since I use a lot of garlic and onion). I'd find that cutting sweet things suddenly became a very bad idea. I would flip the board over, and I'd still smell the garlic. Maybe the best idea would have been to use one board for sweet things and another for savory things.

But, I also became concerned about what happens when cutting raw meat: does the contamination ever really get out of the board? I hear heard of using bleach, but I worried about how safe it would be to bleach a surface and later use it for food, no matter how many times I rinsed it.

That's why I've moved to something like this:

View attachment 28508

Mine don't have little pictures in the corner, but the usage is pretty obvious: this prevents cross-contamination because you rinse off the board and stick it in the dishwasher after you use it. In point of fact, I tend to use the board that best matches the color of what I want to cut (so, the red board is used for beets, so I don't stain the green one).

These boards don't have the feel of cutting on a wooden board - not even close - but the utility seems to be worth it. On the other hand, maybe I need a new wooden board (or two) for Fathers Day?

I'd sad that if all that you'd use a wooden board for is to cut or slice bread, then that should be the only thing to use it for. Washing it could lead to warping & not being perfectly flat.

 

[GadgetGuy]

I put my plastic boards through the dishwasher which sterilises things. Its the easiest option. The wooden boards are washed sometimes but only used for vegetables. As @MypinchofItaly says, if I use anything on them its vinegar or lemon juice. I don't like the idea of using bleach or disinfectant on a food chopping board - or on anything really.

Supermarkets have what is called Clorox Anywhere. It kills germs & bacteria, but is perfectly safe to use on any surface, including a cutting board. I bought some, but the spray trigger on the bottle is not working!! So I'll have to buy another empty spray bottle for it.

 

[Elawin]

I have three chopping boards. Two are teenagers - a wooden one which I use for chopping fruit and veg or for slicing bread. It gets a good scrub every now and then with a good quality washing-up liquid and hot water, but for stubborn stains I use vinegar or vinegar and bicarb mix. I also use it when I press paneer - the "clean" side lowermost against the cheese, and the back side of it uppermost to put the weights on. It also used to get used as a pizza peel before my daughter bought me a metal one last Christmas - and a small plastic chopping board which came in with a £ shop's set of kitchen knives about 15 years ago (and yes, the knives are still in use and are better than some much dearer ones!). I use this one for meat; it usually gets washed with washing-up liquid and hot water, but can go in the dishwasher too.
My third one belonged to my mother. I inherited it in 1982 when she died, and it was not exactly new then. It is made from some sort of fibre board and is coated. I rarely use it for chopping though. It's huge - big enough to roll pastry on but is mainly used for making flatbreads or kneading conventional dough. It does have a few scratches on it where Mum used to use it as a chopping board, but I rarely use it for that purpose. Again I use washing-up liquid and hot water to clean it.
I would add that when I say hot water, I mean hot water - about the same temperature as the water in my dishwasher.

Funnily enough, we were recently talking about chopping boards on Facebook (don't ask!), and were reminded about how back in the 1950s when we were youngsters the same chopping board was used for everything with just a quick wipe in between. None of us ever had or died of food poisoning because of a chopping board.

 

[rascal]

I have about 4 boards I use, 1 is my late mums One is about 60 years old, it says on the board chop vegetables on The other side. I give them a scrub under hot water after cutting meat.

Russ

 

[Mewmew]

I used a cutting board with onions, and no amount of washing would get the smell out.

My mother used one, and it had so many cut marks through repeated choppings from carrots etc, that it permeated through the wood. I only realized that when I sniffed it and rocked backwards. I don't think she cleaned it properly, to tell you the truth...

 

[ElizabethB]

Thanks for the topic.
All of my cutting boards are either wood or bamboo. The two large ones are wood. My favorite and most expensive is a cross cut mahogany. The other large board is an inexpensive straight cut board.
I also have 2 small boards. One is a straight cut board the other is bamboo.
I do not care for the plastic/synthetic boards. They are not knife friendly. I find that my knives lose their edge quickly when using the non wood boards. If I use a board for anything other than protein I wash it with hot, soapy water and dry it on edge. Boards used for protein are cleaned with vinegar and hot water after every use. My cross cut board is treated with mineral oil weekly. The other boards are treated less frequently.
I store the boards on the counter, on edge between the microwave and fridge.
I made a mistake once and left the large, straight cut board flat on the counter. The humidity caused it to warp. I sprayed it with water and weighed it down to correct the warp.