For awhile health departments were telling us that wood is bad/plastic
is good. Now there seems to be a change of heart. At the Deli where I
worked they tossed all the wooden cutting boards and replaced them with
plastic. Now that plastic has been in use for several years they are
finding higher bacterial counts with the plastic than they did with
wood. The new word from the State of Maine's health department is to
toss the plastic and replace it with wood and use a soloution of 5%
bleach/water for sanitizing. While waiting for the experts to make up
their minds I've kept using my wooden cutting boards but I do keep one
for meats and one for vegges. If your cutting board is really worn don't
throw it away, have about a quarter inch planed off the top and keep
using it. If the cutting board was two inches to begin with you won't
even notice that little bit missing.

Helen

Oliva wrote:
>
> I use wood and immediately after I finish with the meat I use a scrub brush
> with hot soapy water, rinsing thoroughly  and letting it *thoroughly* dry
> before putting it away.  I've always done this and so far, so good.  When
> the boards start to get grooves from use over the months, replace them for
> new ones.  I own three.  One for meat, one for poultry and fish and one for
> veggies.   Some people use a mixture of water and bleach in a spray bottle
> to clean them but I don't like the idea of using bleach.  Good old fashioned
> methods work if done properly.  Worked for my mother and grandmother and her
> mother before her,  should work for me too.      Oliva
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: KATHRYN P ROSENTHAL <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Recently, a local family repeatedly became ill with flu-like symptoms.  The
> illness came and went over several months
> >
> The health department told the family to throw out the wooden cutting board
> and to buy a plastic one, saying that wood should never be used as a cutting
> surface for meat.  The family did so, and the illness disappeared.
>
> Kath