Cutting Boards: Bamboo vs Plastic

[Shel_B]

Bamboo is a fantasically green renewable resource. But many of the glues used in making the composits are not. You can read discussions about this in regard to bamboo flooring; some studies suggest that air polution from the glues during manufacture is a significant problem.

 

That's very interesting.  Moving away from cutting boards for a moment, but sticking with the glue used for joining pieces of bamboo, I've noticed a number of bamboo utensils, like mixing spoons, salad forks, etc., made with strips of bamboo that have been glued together.  I wonder how safe that glue is and if it's the same type of glue used in flooring and to join together cutting boards.  Certainly something to look into, if one is concerned about health and environmental issues.

[dcarch]

I don't know if the glue for bamboo kitchen use is food safe. But I don't feel it is of environmental concern.

 

Plywood, particle board, furniture, ------------------ etc. use glue billions and billions times more than the few kitchen tools.

 

Bamboo has to be glued because bamboo plant is a tube, not solid lumber.

 

Bamboo is extremely durable, with tensile strength like steel and does not rot easily. 

 

Bamboo is extremely fast growing, you can actually sit in front of a bamboo plant and see it grow.

 

And bamboo shoots are delicious  :-)

 

dcarch

[Norm Matthews]

 It has been 30 years since I owned a restaurant and things may have changed since them but the health dept. said a bleach solution was a satisfactory sanitizer.  A friend told me he asked his butcher what he used to clean his cutting board and he said he used the bleach solution with salt as an abrasive. 

[patrickamory]

I thought that wood and especially bamboo sanitized themselves very well with a mixture of hot water and soap? I don't use plastic or artificial surfaces for cutting meat - my impression is that the bad bugs survive very well on hard surfaces like formica.

 

As for bamboo wearing down knives - this is absolutely true, I have to hone my knife far more frequently when using my bamboo cutting board than my maple end block one. But I do enjoy the lightness and thinness of it.

[paulraphael]

I thought that wood and especially bamboo sanitized themselves very well with a mixture of hot water and soap? I don't use plastic or artificial surfaces for cutting meat - my impression is that the bad bugs survive very well on hard surfaces like formica.

 

There's been a ton of research on different materials, and while microbes behave slighlty differently on different ones, there's little practical difference. Plastic and rubber can go in the dishwasher; wood can't. Wood and rubber can be sanded smooth; plastic can't. 

 

Nothing sanitizes itself. All of them can be well cleaned in hot soapy water, as long as they don't have deep knifegrooves. Sanitizing is about killing the majority of the microbes that remain after washing (killing all of them would be sterilizing ... you'd have to shrink-wrap the board afterwards, and it wouldn't be sterile anymore once you opened it in the kitchen). 

 

In practice, doing a good job washing is probably enough. Restaurants are required to sanitize. And it's a great idea if you might be making food for anyone who's immune compromised. I do it because it's a useful habit, and because its easy.