How many cutting boards do you have?

[ShawtyCat]

Ive got two of the hard white plastic cutting boards. I use one for meat, one side red meat and the other side poultry. And the other one is for veggies.

Ive also been thinking of buying one with a well in the middle so I can make pasta or chop herbs. Then use the veggie board for the poultry.

How many cutting boards do you have? Are the heavy wooden butcher's blocks better?

Jodi

[bouland]

I use only one: a secton of tree trunk 15" round and 4" thick. I've had it for 25 years and it's still going strong. (And no problems with contamination becuase of the enzymes in the wood.)

[fodigger]

We use the multi-color boards w/ the chart to show which board is for what job. Takes the guess work out of it and helps stave off cross-contamination. I've also had all the kitchen knifes color cordinated too. That way it's easy to find the employees doing something right.

[chiffonade]

We have about 8. There was once a belief that the plastic boards were better than wood but that was dispelled by the New York Times over 10 years ago.

* 2 Large wooden Boos
* Large steak carving with "juice gully"
* small board with a handle (consumer size)
* Footed board (very thick)
* Marble (not really a cutting board, primarily used for pastry)
* small miscellaneous boards (1 for cutting lemons on the bar )

My mother wore a hole in her cutting board when I was a kid. I saw her trying to continue using it by cutting away from the hole. I bought her a new one - and took the one with the hole. It now hangs in a place of honor in my kitchen. One more thing that will never see the garbage.

[Mezzaluna]

My favorite board is a 1-1/2" thick block I made out of strips of maple. It's taken a lot of abuse but still looks great after 25 years. I have some smaller plastic ones for chopping veggies, as the dishwasher takes out the onion and garlic odors. I also have a large oak board with a juice gully for carving meats and poultry. When I married my husband, he had a glass counter protector he had been using as a cutting board; he couldn't figure out why that was a bad idea....

P.S.- ShawtyCat, your little kitten is adorable!

[Kimmie]

Hmmm, good question:

Plastic
1 yellow
1 blue
1 white

Wood
1 large board that I use for bread and pastry
1 antique board that I mainly use for pasta
2 smaller ones on legs
1 bread board
1 butcher block

[Mezzaluna]

Oy, vey! I forgot my heirloom board: It's 24"X24" or so, made of maple. My grandmother bought it sometime in her first year of marriage (1910). She used it for kneading bread and for making noodles. I've never had bad results when I use it... must be her spirit soaked into the wood!

[ShawtyCat]

I was thinking of getting the color coded ones but these are my home or soon to be PC Boards. And I know which one if for what product since they look different. Has anyone seen those smaller wooden ones with the well that they uses for herbs? I realized that I might not want my pasta taking on the aroma of chopped herbs. So I think a motar and pestle and I can get my friend (he custom made all our furniture) to make me a small wooden board for the herbs.

Mezz

Thanks for the compliments about my baby girl. I stare at her everyday wondering where the time is going. I feel like I only brought her home yesterday. Now she's going to Kindergarten. ~Sigh~

Jodi

[Jim]

We are required to have 1) Red = raw meat, 1) Green = veggies, 1) Prepared foods.... I say that's all a bunch of rubbish!!! No offense intended to anybody using these boards. However, I believe if you clean your boards, rinse your boards, sanitize your boards and store your boards properly there should be NO threat of contamination. Yeah, yeah I know about taking preventative measures, but where does it end? Now they have color coded brushes to clean your color coded boards!! There are also color coded knives to use on your color coded boards that need to be washed with your color coded brushes. What's next... color coded chicken?!?!

At home, it's wood. Period. Bacteria has a real problem standing up to a well-kept hunk of lumber. For raw meat, just so I don't ruin my wood board, I have a slab of Corian with a little well for catching the gunk.

[ShawtyCat]

So Jim,

Think I should leave tha pasta board alone? Ive already got my raw meat board that's separate from my veggie board. Ive been cutting my herbs on my veggie board and making pasta via my clean kitchen table. Maybe I dont need any other equipment. Would be redundant wouldn't it?

Loved your comment about the color coded chicken! I went to a restaurant once and ordered a half roast chicken with mashed and gravy. The chicken was a pale green color! Can you believe the waiter couldn't understand why I didn't want to eat it and wanted my money back? Darn thing was way past contaminated! One bite would have been like a cyanide tablet.

Jodi

[Jim]

So do you cut green chicken on the green cutting board? And then clean it with the green brush? Hmmmm....

[Kimmie]

Jim, no wonder your are Cantankerous!

[phatch]

6, all plastic. I love the dishwasher. Anything I don't have to wash by hand gets big pluses in my house.

Well, I have two corian boards too from when I remodeled my kitchen. Corian is mighty tough on the edges of knives so now they mostly get used as my kids craft boards.

And about the wood and enzymes. The wood was less bacteria ridden than the plastic after 24 hours without cleaning. Not that it was clean or safe to use. Wood is no substitute for cleaning and proper hygiene. Many health boards won't allow wood in commercial kitchens because they are more difficult to sterilize quickly and easily. Not that they can't be but it's more work.

Phil

[Suzanne]

4, all white plastic, varying sizes. Plus one of those flexible translucent things (a giveaway at a conference), that is just about worthless. Used to have a wooden one, but when I tried whacking a coconut on it, the board split, not the coconut!

Hubby tends to use the smallest one (about 8" X 10") to cut up salad veggies. I like the big ones -- especially for chopping herbs. Too much stuff falls off the little one while I'm chopping.

And yes, hooray for dishwashers! I may scrub a board after I cut vegs, but once it's been used for meat (raw or cooked), INTO THE MACHINE.

Jim -- Sure, it's easy to go overboard (no pun intended) with all that color coding. But if it means that some prep cook who hasn't been properly trained can still keep my sandwich away from the raw chicken, that's GOOD. Training matters most, always. But little tricks like color-coding are okay in my book if it keeps food safe.

BTW: has anyone ever used those scrapers that are supposed to plane down hard rubber cutting boards, to get rid of the pits and gashes? Do they work? Or do they just make the board even more uneven?

[Isa]

I'm almost embarass to say I have only one.