There are a dozen little items in my kitchen that I have seldom given much thought to as I’m cooking up meals. One of those items is a cutting board. I bring it out when I need to chop stuff up so I don’t hack up my counters. What thought do I need to apply?
While picking a cutting board is never a life or death situation, picking the wrong one can have an impact on other items in your kitchen. A softer cutting board (plastic or wood) will help preserve the sharp edge on your knife. A harder cutting board such as a glass cutting board will dull your knives faster. I know with as much as I use my favorite knife, anything that makes it dull faster is a bad thing indeed.
Another thing to consider when choosing a cutting board is thickness, especially with plastic. Unless the cutting board is one of those flexible ones (which are excellent for funneling diced veggies into a pot or pan), it can warp easily if too thin. We made this mistake once with a cutting board when trying to save a couple of bucks. Now it’s warped and a pain to use so we’re looking for a replacement. By trying to save a couple of bucks we actually ended up losing some money in the long run.
There are definitely of factions of foodies when it comes to cutting boards. Some are very pro-plastic and some are very pro-wood. While there are definitely more in the pro-wood camp, there are a couple of advantages to plastic.
I personally use plastic because they are light, easy to clean and usually cheaper than their wood counterparts. You can easily sanitize a plastic cutting board by throwing it in the dishwasher (though there are arguments to the contrary). The dishwasher is a big no-no for a wood cutting board since it dries it out and causes cracking.
Just because you can’t throw a wooden cutting board in the dishwasher doesn’t mean you can’t clean it though. TheKitchn.com actually did a great write up on how to clean a built in wood cutting board. Even though this article is geared towards built ins, there is valuable information in there that can be applied to all cutting boards.
Bamboo is a wood type cutting board that is starting to become very popular. Because it is made of a sustainable material it appeals to the ecological part of us all. Bamboo is a little bit harder than woods typically used for cutting boards though and will dull your knives a bit faster, but it is still much better than glass.
After my research, I am contemplating a change to a wooden cutting board. They are definitely not as unsanitary as I once thought and though they will take a little more care and cost a bit more they have the potential of lasting a very long time.
Resources:
theKitchn.com - How to Clean A Built In Cutting Board
theKitchn.com - What's The Best Kind of Cutting Board
Rouxbe.com Video:
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