Which type of chopping board do you think is best? I have both wooden and plastic chopping boards and they are getting very worn out so I'm probably going to be buying new ones soon and I'll probably just get both types again. I'd like to know if there is a specific type of board that would be best though. I've heard there are some other varieties now like bamboo or even stone slab, but I'm honestly leaning more towards just getting plastic for ease of maintenance. What do you guys think?
I don't cook at all... What I know about this issue, is from seeing a chopping board company go to Shark Thank. There's a lot of debate regarding which is more hygienic: Wood or Plastic? Supposedly wood has some organic quality that makes is better. But the majority seem to agree that plastic is better. I use both myself. But like I said, I'm not the one to give cooking advice.
I have always used wooden or bamboo chopping boards because they are hygienic and natural. Plastic is something that I have completely banned from my home. It is toxic, damages the environment, takes a very long time to break down, and is especially dangerous to one's health when used in cooking. My personal recommendation would be to avoid plastic chopping boards.
I'm using wooden chopping boards and I like them a lot better than the plastic ones. I've been reading a little and I learned that the plastic ones tend to keep bacteria alive no matter how much you wash them. In contrast, the wooden ones retain little bacteria. Once a plastic board gets cuts it becomes hard to clean, a wooden chopping board, even with cuts, is easy to clean. The only thing I dislike about wood boards is that if not properly dried the wood becomes stained. I never tried using a stone slab, isn't it expensive?
No love for a glass chopping board? I've been using the same one for about three years now and I love it! I wipe it over and then put it in the dishwasher at the end of the day. Sadly the pattern has long since worn away, but it is as clean as the day we brought it home.
I was pretty shocked as well when I heard that the plastic boards can be worse for you than the wooden boards. I knew that the cuts and grooves in them would trap some bad stuff, but I didn't believe it was any worse than what a wooden board was capable of trapping. Amercia's Test Kitchen did a segment on this recently when comparing cutting boards, and they came to the same conclusion as well, that Wooden ones were best. I'm still not 100% sold on this though, as I've worked in many restaurants for years that had us cutting on plastic based boards and counter tops. We would simply wipe them down with disinfectant repeatedly throughout the day, and do a deep clean with bleach water at the end of a shift. I'm still having a hard time believing that a plastic cutting board, that has been run through the dishwasher and/or soaked in bleach water after being cleaned is less safe. Maybe they are assuming most people just rinse them off and don't do a deep clean on them. I always put mine directly in the dish washer after using them. Then they go through a really hot washing and drying cycle. There's no way bacteria are surviving that. Plus not to mention, wooden boards will develop mold over time, that cannot be good to be cutting food on black mold. Glass boards drive me up a wall, I cannot believe people use those. I wan't to scream when I hear someone destroying their knives by chopping on a glass cutting board, lol.
