Stop cooking with plastic cookware, time to switch to wood! Have you made the leap?

[jennyema]

In fact, research has shown that plastic is MORE bacteria friendly than wood and knives score the plastic which lets grot and bacteria get trapped in them and unlike cuts in wood, bacteria can thrive and multiply in the cuts in plastic.

UC-Davis Food Safety Laboratory: Cutting Board Research
and
RELEASE: Study: Wood cutting boards, not plastic, are safer for food prep

Glass may be the best as far as cleaning is concerned but it will rapidly ruin your knives.

I spray mine with a beach solution before they go in the dishwasher.

Plastic rules!

 

[bakechef]

...from the UCDavis link: "Mechanical cleaning with a dishwashing machine can be done successfully with plastic surfaces (even if knife-scarred) and wooden boards especially made for this."

Good enough for me.

Good enough for me too. My dishwasher is NSF certified and has a heated sanitize rinse, I'm confident that it gets my plastic cutting boards plenty clean.

 

[Dawgluver]

Stop cooking with plastic cookware, time to switch to wood! Have you made the...

Bleach spray and a dishwasher work for me on my plastic cutting sheet.

 

[Vanitas]

I bought all the silicone spatulas at Dollarama. Some of them are one piece, Betty Crocker brand.

I have those too! I stumbled across the Betty Crocker stuff by accident one day... and now own most of the gadgets from the set. I love Dollarama!

Glass may be the best as far as cleaning is concerned but it will rapidly ruin your knives.

It also feels weird to cut on, in my opinion. The knife touching the glass gives me that "nails on a chalkboard" feeling. That being said, I have a glass cutting board that I use solely for making dough. I find the dough doesn't stick to the glass as much as other surfaces.

I have some of all--silicone, wood, stainless, non-stick. Which one I use depends on the pan I am using. I don't know that there is a "better" one, rather, which is appropriate for the pan/pot/bowl.

This sums it up perfectly!!!

 

[jennyema]

I spray mine with a beach solution before they go in the dishwasher.

Plastic rules!

My high temp dishwasher will kill all bacteria without bleach. But I use a bleach solution all over my kitchen.

Plastic rules!

 

[Mad Cook]

I have both wooden and plastic cutting boards. Because of the anti-microbial properties of wood, I always use them for cutting raw meat. I don't put them in the DW because they are not made from a single piece of wood, so I am afraid the pieces would come apart. I put wooden spoons in the DW. I like the convenience of putting the plastic cutting boards in the DW.

I have a LOT of wooden spoons and quite a few silicone spatulas. I bought all the silicone spatulas at Dollarama. Some of them are one piece, Betty Crocker brand. I have one bamboo spatula and it goes in the DW too.

Remember that bamboo is not wood. It's a grass. As far as I know, no one has tested bamboo to see if it gets rid of micro-organisms the way wood does.

One of my friends "sterilises" her wooden chopping board in the microwave. She says her scientist son told her this was a Good
idea but not to do it with her plastic board. She does have a very big m/wave and a small-ish wooden board. I offer this as comment only as I have no idea if it works.

 

[Andy M.]

My high temp dishwasher will kill all bacteria without bleach. But I use a bleach solution all over my kitchen.

Plastic rules!

+1.

I keep a spray bottle with a bleach/water solution for sanitizing counters, sink, etc.

 

[taxlady]

I have those too! I stumbled across the Betty Crocker stuff by accident one day... and now own most of the gadgets from the set. I love Dollarama!

...

I bought some Betty Crocker non-stick baking sheets. I like to roast vegis in the oven, but I don't like wasting aluminium foil, so I thought these would be ideal. They work fine, but after only three uses they started to get stained. YMMV. I'm not generally a fan of non-stick.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

+1.

I keep a spray bottle with a bleach/water solution for sanitizing counters, sink, etc.

I have a bottle of Soft Scrub Gel with Bleach under the sink. I keep a dish scrubber with a detergent reservoir filled with the gel so I can scrub the surface of the plastic cutting board, then rinse and put into the dishwasher. Easy-peasy ~ works for me. I also use that scrubber to quick-clean the sink and rubber mats between major scrubbings with a better brush and more gel.

 

[Kayelle]

I think we should all be very glad that there's really no such thing as the cooking police telling us exactly what we must do.

 

[Addie]

Alas. Have anyone ever written an "Ode to the dishwasher"?

I once told my daughter about my life long wish list. On it was and upstairs/downstairs maid. But first I wanted an upstairs and a downstairs. Then for downstairs I always wanted a dishwasher. So for my 50th birthday, all four kids and my sister all chipped in an got me a portable dishwasher. I had to wheel it over to the sink and hook it up. But I didn't care. I had me a dishwasher. It finally wore itself out. But I loved it for the ten or plus years I had it. It was a Sears Kenmore with a chopping block on top. But being on wheels it made it too high for me to use. So a pretty antique hand embroidered cloth was on top with my McCoy Wishing Well Cookie Jar sitting there in all its glory. I still have the cookie jar and antique cloth. And the memories of my fulfilled wish of a dish washer. The last time I checked, my cookie jar is a collectible worth $25. I paid the grand sum of $1.00 at a yard sale. For the antique hand embroidered cloth, I paid the $25.

 

[bakechef]

My mom had a Kenmore portable dishwasher for years, it also had the wood top. I remember hooking it up to the sink and plugging it into the wall. It also made a great movable island!

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[Addie]

My mom had a Kenmore portable dishwasher for years, it also had the wood top. I remember hooking it up to the sink and plugging it into the wall. It also made a great movable island!

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All through my married life, the only brand of appliances I would buy was Kenmore. They always stood up for reliability. Kenmore seemed to be the appliance of choice for New Englanders. All my friends had them and every time I had to go to Sears, the appliance section was always full of folks where the Kenmore ones were. At that time they were made by RCA Whirlpool.

 

[CWS4322]

My mom had a Kenmore portable dishwasher for years, it also had the wood top. I remember hooking it up to the sink and plugging it into the wall. It also made a great movable island!

Sent from my XT1080 using Discuss Cooking mobile app

I couldn't fit a built-in dishwasher in my kitchen (it is the basement--looking for a new home). A friend and I both have portable dishwashers. We love that the dishwasher makes a moveable island in our small kitchens. When I use the dehydrator, it is parked on top of the dishwasher, ditto when I use the bread machine or my lefse griddle. During the draught (2012?), I would save the gray water and use it to water my flowers.

 

[bakechef]

All through my married life, the only brand of appliances I would buy was Kenmore. They always stood up for reliability. Kenmore seemed to be the appliance of choice for New Englanders. All my friends had them and every time I had to go to Sears, the appliance section was always full of folks where the Kenmore ones were. At that time they were made by RCA Whirlpool.

My current Kenmore dishwasher is a Whirlpool. My mom's Maine kitchen was Kenmore, before that Gibson that was sold by the local furniture and appliance store until it wore out.

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[bakechef]

I couldn't fit a built-in dishwasher in my kitchen (it is the basement--looking for a new home). A friend and I both have portable dishwashers. We love that the dishwasher makes a moveable island in our small kitchens. When I use the dehydrator, it is parked on top of the dishwasher, ditto when I use the bread machine or my lefse griddle. During the draught (2012?), I would save the gray water and use it to water my flowers.

It was always a great place to put an appliance and keep the counters clear.

Sent from my XT1080 using Discuss Cooking mobile app

 

[Bigjim68]

Probably a small point, but a bamboo board is not a wooden board, bamboo is a grass, and a bamboo board is more plastic than bamboo.

Neither bamboo nor plastic is easy on knives.

I use wood exclusively. Either ones I make myself, or cheap ones from Ikea. My knives stay sharp for years.

 

[taxlady]

Probably a small point, but a bamboo board is not a wooden board, bamboo is a grass, and a bamboo board is more plastic than bamboo.

Neither bamboo nor plastic is easy on knives.

I use wood exclusively. Either ones I make myself, or cheap ones from Ikea. My knives stay sharp for years.

And since bamboo isn't wood, it may not have the anti-microbial properties of wood.

I have one of those cheap, wood, Ikea cutting boards. I'm very happy with it. It's not very thick and, no, it doesn't stay put the way a heavy board does. However, a beech wood cutting board that measures ~1x27x45 cm (~.5"x11"x18") for about $7 seems like a really good deal to me.

 

[Bigjim68]

And since bamboo isn't wood, it may not have the anti-microbial properties of wood.

I have one of those cheap, wood, Ikea cutting boards. I'm very happy with it. It's not very thick and, no, it doesn't stay put the way a heavy board does. However, a beech wood cutting board that measures ~1x27x45 cm (~.5"x11"x18") for about $7 seems like a really good deal to me.

The boards I buy are 18 x 20, cost around 10 bucks, and have a lip on one side that hangs over the front of the counter.

I think I read somewhere that a bamboo board is somewhere around 20% bamboo. The rest is plastic. Bamboo is terrible on edged tools. Ask anyone who has tried to saw down a few stalks. I would assume, although I don't know, that you are correct about the anti-microbial properties.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

...I have one of those cheap, wood, Ikea cutting boards. I'm very happy with it. It's not very thick and, no, it doesn't stay put the way a heavy board does...

Put it on top of a silicone hot pad or two. I usually use plastic cutting boards; they will slide on my Formica. A number of Christmases ago, my SIL gave me a couple of the silicone potholders. They seem too stiff to me to use as potholders, but I find them very useful as hot pads or under the cutting boards to prevent slipping.