News — food safety

If you love cooking from scratch, your chopping board is probably the hardest working thing in your kitchen. It sees everything from raw chicken to juicy tomatoes to a last minute cheese board when friends pop round. The trick is making sure those ingredients do not share more than the worktop. In this guide we will walk through how to avoid cross-contamination with wooden chopping boards, keep your food safe and your boards looking beautiful for years. What is cross-contamination and why does it matter? Cross-contamination is when harmful bacteria from one food transfer to another. The classic example is...

If you cook a lot of fish and veg at home, you’ll know how quickly chopping boards can start to look a bit tired. Stains, smells, knife marks … it all adds up. So it’s no surprise more people are asking: are carbonised bamboo boards hygienic for fish and veg, or should you stick to plastic or traditional wood? Let’s walk through what carbonised bamboo actually is, how it behaves in a busy kitchen and how to keep it perfectly safe for everything from salmon fillets to Sunday roast veg. What is carbonised bamboo, really? Carbonised bamboo is still bamboo....

If you love cooking from scratch, your bamboo chopping board probably sees its fair share of chicken breasts, steaks and Sunday joints. It looks beautiful on the worktop, but the moment raw meat hits the surface, one question matters more than any other: how do you clean it properly without ruining the wood or risking food poisoning? Here’s exactly how to clean bamboo chopping boards after raw meat prep, the way we do it at Deer & Oak. No faff, no myths, just practical steps that keep your board safe, fresh and looking good for years. Why bamboo needs different...

Raw meat is where your chopping board choice really matters. Juices, bacteria, sharp knives and regular scrubbing all put your board under serious pressure. So when you are choosing between carbonised bamboo and acacia, which is best for raw meat cutting, and which is better kept for bread, fruit and showy serving platters? At Deer & Oak we work with both materials every day, so we have strong opinions, plenty of testing behind us and more than a few ruined boards from years gone by. Here is what actually works in a real home kitchen. What do we mean by...