Can I use the same wooden cutting board for vegetables and meat if I cut the vegetables first?

Question

So far I have seen posts mentioning to clean the board after cutting meat to cut vegetables afterwards. Does this also apply when cutting vegetables first?

Answer 1

You can use whatever cutting board for whatever you want at home, there are no laws to it. Restaurants have pretty strict guidelines and use color coding because in a multi-chef environment it would be too easy to cross-contaminate something if the same board was used, at home you have total control and you can use the same board safely as long as you use good sense. I use the same board almost every time to save on cleanup.

From a pure safety point of view as long as everything is getting thoroughly cooked it doesn't matter what order you do it in, however good habits eliminate mistakes, and as someone who has gotten sick from cross-contamination I know what it's like so I take no chances. I always start with the not to be cooked items because it's much easier and pleasant to cut them on a clean board, and there's no danger of contamination. I will make sure the not to be cooked food is separate from the board before I cut anything where safety is a concern.

If I forget to cut something like garlic before I cut up meat I'll still use the same board provided it's going straight into the pan, otherwise I'll grab a clean board.

Answer 2

In addition to @GdD's answer:

Best to keep separate boards for meat and other items. This is the recommendation from the USDA, The Canadian Institute of Food Safety and from several other food safety authorities world-wide.

Wooden boards are not generally recommended for cutting meats unless solely used for that purpose. This is because meat juices can soak into and permeate wooden boards. Meat juices are excellent media for the growth of bacteria. Washing the meat juice and bacteria out of a wooden board is difficult because knives tend to cut into the board leaving micro scratches and other deeper cuts that hold moisture and harbour bacteria well. In addition, wood has natural pores that, when the tree was alive, allowed transport of water and nutrients from the roots to the leaves. These are big enough that water can permeate and so the board stays moist for longer than other materials such as plastic might. You can mitigate this to some extent by using a treated wooden board. This is usually done with a food safe oil or other coating that permeates the wood and fills in the pores. These have to be reapplied occasionally. Wooden boards also can't be washed as well as other materials because of these pores and because they tend to warp in hot water, so people avoid warping them by hand-washing.

Because of all these factors, wooden boards tend to be washed by hand and so don't end up quite as sterile as they might if washed in the higher temperature water and with more corrosive chemicals in a dishwasher. This means that even if you wash your wooden board, they can harbour dangerous bacteria from the meat.

To some extent, the same applies to plastic boards - scored and scratched boards harbour more bacteria than smooth new ones; which isn't really surprising if you think about it. The best advice is to keep your boards as undamaged as possible.

There is quite a bit of advice, such as on this question and this question on this site that suggests that wooden boards are safer than plastic. I have only found a couple of references to support this. Ak et al, 1994 state that they found greater reduction in bacterial amounts on wood than they did on plastic. However, they found that this was not the case when both wood and plastic were left exposed to air - the plastic dried and the wood did not, so the plastic was covered with cling-film to prevent evaporation. Drying is generally considered quite an effective way to inhibit bacterial growth, it also kills many types of bacteria but some species can form endospores, which are dehydration resistant. The same authors have another paper, also from 1994, which reaches essentially the same conclusions. The couple of other papers espousing this view tend to rely on Ak et al for the basis of their information.

The current scientific consensus as far as I can see is that wooden is less safe than plastic or glass as it results in more biofilm formation, and more absorption than plastic or glass. References to back this up: Dantas et al, 2018; Welker et al, 1997; Al-Qadiri et al, 2016. Even in scored/scratched plastics compared to scored/scratched woods, plastic saw fewer bacteria and less cross-contamination Tang et al 2011. Even the popularly mentioned maple chopping boards are less safe than plastic (see Al-Qadiri reference).

Of course, butchers have been using wood for a long time; but remember a few things - 1) plastics are only about 100 years old, were not common for the first 30ish of that, and early plastics weren't suitable for chopping boards as they were too brittle; 2) Butchers will clean the block well at the end of each shift, possibly using sterilizing agents such as quaternary ammonium compounds; and 3) they only use them for meat...which is stored properly and then sold for cooking, no veges or other food items come near the block.

Refs (in order of above citations):

• Ak NO, Cliver DO, Kaspar CW. Decontamination of Plastic and Wooden Cutting Boards for Kitchen Use. J Food Prot. 1994 Jan;57(1):23-30. doi: 10.4315/0362-028X-57.1.23. PMID: 31113026.

• Ak NO, Cliver DO, Kaspar CW. Cutting Boards of Plastic and Wood Contaminated Experimentally with Bacteria. J Food Prot. 1994 Jan;57(1):16-22. doi: 10.4315/0362-028X-57.1.16. PMID: 31113021.

• Dantas STA, Rossi BF, Bonsaglia ECR, Castilho IG, Hernandes RT, Fernandes A Júnior, Rall VLM. Cross-Contamination and Biofilm Formation by Salmonella enterica Serovar Enteritidis on Various Cutting Boards. Foodborne Pathog Dis. 2018 Feb;15(2):81-85. doi: 10.1089/fpd.2017.2341. Epub 2017 Oct 20. PMID: 29053370.

• Welker C, Faiola N, Davis S, Maffatore I, Batt CA. Bacterial Retention and Cleanability of Plastic and Wood Cutting Boards with Commercial Food Service Maintenance Practices. J Food Prot. 1997 Apr;60(4):407-413. doi: 10.4315/0362-028X-60.4.407. PMID: 31195548.

• Al-Qadiri HM, Ovissipour M, Al-Alami N, Govindan BN, Shiroodi SG, Rasco B. Efficacy of Neutral Electrolyzed Water, Quaternary Ammonium and Lactic Acid-Based Solutions in Controlling Microbial Contamination of Food Cutting Boards Using a Manual Spraying Technique. J Food Sci. 2016 May;81(5):M1177-83. doi: 10.1111/1750-3841.13275. Epub 2016 Mar 29. PMID: 27027449.

• Tang JY, Nishibuchi M, Nakaguchi Y, Ghazali FM, Saleha AA, Son R. Transfer of Campylobacter jejuni from raw to cooked chicken via wood and plastic cutting boards. Lett Appl Microbiol. 2011 Jun;52(6):581-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1472-765X.2011.03039.x. Epub 2011 Mar 30. PMID: 21375548.