by Jeffrey Hall

Created on: March 27, 2009

Glass/stone vs wood vs plastic:

Unless a cook uses cheap knives, enjoys the task of sharpening knives, or is willing to regularly buy new knives, cutting surfaces that are harder (have a larger number on the Mohs or Rockwell scales) than the blade should avoided. These will serve to dull and chip knife blades, especially textured glass.

Not only will the hard cutting surfaces dull the blades over time, in the hands of most knife users, the slight torquing of the blade as it clears the item being cut and contacts the surface will serve to bend the knife edge quite quickly; requiring very frequent steeling of the blade to re-align the blade.

In the case of textured glass, any torquing during contact with the surface can cause small chips in the blade surface, quickly dulling the blade beyond the ability of steeling to correct.

While studies have demonstrated that both wood and plastic cutting boards can harbor bacteria, the bacteria generally resides deeper within the pores of the wood, rather than within the shallow scratches (from the knife blade) as in the plastic boards.1

The bacteria is more embedded within the wood, making it more difficulty to clean, but also more difficult to release the bacteria onto the food located on the cutting board surface. So, in effect, the wood serves to trap the bacteria within the cutting board, while the plastic makes the bacteria more readily accessible, both to cleaning supplies and to food products.

It should also be noted that proper care of a wood board generally consists of wiping the board with oil (such as mineral or olive oil) after washing the board. The lipid layer not only helps prevent the wood structure from drying out, but presumably also reduces the availability of oxygen for use by the bacteria, thus slowing metabolic rate.

One thing that is often left out of cutting board discussions is the fact that most cooking procedures assume that the meat is contaminated with bacteria, and thus acheive a high enough internal heat within the food to kill the microbes. (Raw meat preparations are the exception to this).
So, the entire issue of bacteria can be easily sidestepped by having a separate cutting board for meat. Being contaminated with pathogenic bacteria will be a non-issue for the board, as all foods coming into contact with the board will be treated as if they are contaminatedand cooked to safe temperature.

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