Sometimes you just need to use the least bad option. I tend to use my wood board for dry or veg foods, and 100% always use the plastic board for meat products.

There’s apparently so much plastic already in me that I don’t care. What I care is not having that chicken fluid soaked into the wooden board.

Scrub it with hot soapy water and let it dry it will be fine.

You mean scrub with that sponge made out of plastic? Because you definitely want those crevasses clean. And how hot should the water be? You have 70 degree Celsius water coming out from your tap?

But hey, I used to do that. No matter how much you take care of them, the hot water wash and drying leads to those chopping boards splitting after so many uses. Those plastic buggers last for years.

scrub with a natural bristle brush.

You can oil them occasionally if they are drying out too much and cracking.

But yes they probably won't last forever. Shrug. Get another one.

I’ll stick my plastic boards for meat :)

I have a bamboo cutting board that I purchased in 2004, and a mesquite wood cutting board gifted to me a few years later. Both look nearly new despite using them daily.

Now I don't cook meat, so maybe that is why my experience doesn't match yours.

Just regular soap and water with a brush seem to work fine, no need to scrub hard, generally.

Under-rated comment. Microplastics are an omnipresent, low, vague risk, and I already have a long list of those which people want me to care about. While food poisoning is much more of an immediate problem - and still from time to time kills people!

Until I read this article, this thought had never occurred to me.

Not that I use a plastic board anyway.

not to mention all the microplastics released in the dishwasher when it runs! this sounds like a bad idea to me.

I personally have a dedicated wood cutting board that is for meat only. I cook my meat to safe temperatures anyway so i’m not too worried about sanitizing it perfectly. I just do my best with hot water, soap, and a sponge.

Not really, at least judging by the state of my plastic boards. Contrary to wooden boards, they’re completely unsuitable for dishwashers. Who knows what were these wooden boards treated with to make them “food safe”.

I hope you don’t use any polyester if you’re so concerned about my plastic board. Just imagine all that plastic from washing polyester. Or maybe you have a car with seats made out of plastic bottles fished out of the ocean?

yeah, a wooden cutting board isn’t great for a dishwasher either.

I dislike polyester in general, with the exception of exercise shorts and sneakers. I buy cotton or wool if possible. Polyester just feels cheap to me, and avoiding it also means i have less microplastics exposure. :)

There’s no hiding from microplastics. I do take some steps to avoid them where it’s easy, instead of purposely adding more to my body.

Anything waterproof is going to be either leather or polyester. There’s no getting around it today.

Waxed cotton?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waxed_cotton

Never seen anything made out of that in the shop. How expensive is it? And what do we think about this?

> Waxed cotton came in either black, or an inconsistent dark olive. Colour was controlled by the amount of copper left from the cupro-ammonia treatment.

that’s pretty interesting, didn’t realize that was used for some outdoor gear!

It reminds me of this cling-wrap alternative i use in the kitchen: https://www.beeswrap.com/

I do have a couple of those. They’re terrible to wash.

Switched to this kind of stuff instead https://www.dm.de/profissimo-frischhaltehauben-aus-silikon-p... + normal cotton towels and paper for everything else.

yes they are. i use them more for covering bowls, etc. They don’t get as messy that way.

This looks great for wrapping avocados, cucumbers, etc. Thanks for the tip!

Boiled wool is pretty water resistant, that’s usually what wool coats are made of.

Yep, polyester was the first thing to go. It’s a crappy fabric for all sorts of other reasons anyway.