News — food safety

If you want to know how bamboo cutting boards compare to plastic for bacteria, controlled kitchen studies show that hard bamboo can hold up to 2 to 3 times fewer live bacteria on the surface after washing than heavily scored plastic boards. In everyday terms, a well cared for moso bamboo board is usually the safer long term option for bacteria than a scratched plastic board, as long as you clean and dry it properly. How bamboo cutting boards behave with bacteria Bamboo is a grass with a naturally dense structure. Moso bamboo in particular has a Janka hardness of...

If you care for it properly, a bamboo cutting board is bacteria safe according to multiple studies, with research showing that bamboo and other wooden boards can reduce viable bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella on the surface within 3 to 12 hours compared with plastic boards that keep bacteria alive in deep knife grooves. What the studies actually say about bamboo and bacteria Several food safety and microbiology studies have looked at how bacteria behave on different cutting board materials. While not every paper tests Moso bamboo specifically, the findings for bamboo and hardwoods are very similar and point...

If you want to follow UK food safety guidance, the chopping board colour for raw meat is red. In a colour coded kitchen system, you use a red cutting board only for raw beef, lamb and pork, a separate board for raw poultry, and never mix them with boards for cooked food or vegetables. Why red chopping boards are used for raw meat Professional kitchens across the UK use a simple colour system so everyone knows exactly what each board is for. For raw meat, the standard is: Red chopping board for raw red meat such as beef, lamb and...

If your chopping board has visible grooves deeper than 1 mm, the safest way to disinfect it at home is to scrub it with hot washing up liquid, then flood the surface with a thin layer of 3% hydrogen peroxide for 5 minutes, rinse, dry upright and, if the grooves are still rough, retire it for raw meat and replace it with a new board. Why damaged chopping boards with grooves are risky Deep knife grooves and chips act like tiny trenches that trap raw meat juices, onion and garlic, and old food. Even if the surface looks clean, bacteria...