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You've seen a commercial for one cleaning product or another that shows a piece of raw chicken dripping juice onto a counter. The child then puts his hands on the counter (after it has been wiped insufficiently) and goes to touch a multitude of other things: the phone, his toys, the family pet, a cookie. The message tells you how quickly germs can spread. In essence, this is what happens when you do not clean your cutting board. You touch the cutting board you have not sanitized, then you prepare a salad, take out some bread, etc. and everything is now contaminated.

You've also heard the saying "When you sleep with someone, you sleep with everyone they've slept with before" in commercials urging you to practice safe sex. This can also apply to your sanitation methods in the kitchen. No, I'm not talking about having sex in your kitchen. That's a whole other article. What I mean is, when you don't sanitize your cutting board or use separate cutting boards for each task, you are coming in contact with everything you have put on that cutting board again and again.

The best thing to do is get a separate cutting board for each item you are cooking with: white meat, red meat, fruits/veggies and starches (such as bread). But if you don't have the time, or space, or money to splurge on 4 or more boards, you must religiously wash the boards you do have.

There is a difference between "cleaning" and "sanitizing" that most people overlook. You can clean your board, but that does not make it sanitized. If you run a wet cloth over your board after you trim steak on it, it looks clean, right? But it is not sanitary. Just water will not sanitize. You need to use a special soap or other cleaning agent such as a heavily diluted bleach solution. On the flip side, you can also sanitize but not clean. You can spray your board with a sanitizer, but if there are still little bits of steak hanging on, you have sanitized the steak, but the cutting board is not clean. It's like if you spilled Cheerios on the kitchen floor and then tried to fix it by dumping some Mr. Clean on them.

In addition to sanitizing your board you must also pick the best board for the job.
Contrary to popular belief, wooden boards are more sanitary than plastic. When a wooden board gets a nick or scratch in it, which can attract bacteria, it self-heals. Plastic boards do not. However, plastic is more resistant to harsh chemicals, which may result in a better cleaning job. If you decide on a wooden board, do not soak in it water or chemicals. Wood is very absorbent and can be damaged this way. It is also not recommended to put raw meat on a wooden board because of how porous wood is. Bacteria can get trapped. Use an undamaged plastic board for raw meat.

Other less common types of boards are glass, steel and "solid surfaces" such as Corian. They are durable and easy to clean, but very damaging to knives because they are very unyielding. Another type of board is marble, which is commonly used for rolling dough or cutting cheese because of it's ability to remain cold. Some gourmet ice cream shops use chilled marble to mix ice cream with toppings because the ice cream will not melt. Marble is also very hard and it is not recommended that you cut or chop on it. Marble is also abrasive, and will slowly dissolve when exposed to some acids.

No matter what board you choose, it is important to use that board for it's best purpose and to clean it properly.

Information on cutting boards obtained from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C utting_board

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