I see this bit of advice from Food Network a lot. During my time working in a restaurant, this was one of the safety rules that we had to follow (white for meats, blue for fish, green for fruits and vegetables).
To me, it seems like it doesnt make sense. If there were germs on the food before cutting, there will be germs there afterwards, and all the way until you cook it. What difference does it make for fishy germs to get on beef when both die in the oven?
At home, I have 2 cutting boards, but divided by size, not types of food I put on it. I’ve freely put slabs of beef, pork, and fish on it at the same time and I’ve never gotten sick. So is that rule just something pointless? Is it specifically to deal with allergic people?
I’ve always heard, you know, two cutting boards. One for veggies and fruits, one for meats of all kinds. The rationale behind that is that a lot of vegetables are cut but not cooked.
Seems a little paranoid. . .until you come on your first batch of tainted cucumber-tomato salad. Yuck.
It’s also worth noting that different meats cook to different temperatures. I wouldn’t be surprised if, for instance, there are germs in/on pork that wouldn’t be killed by cooking to the temperature that fish requires.
If you use a single board and simply flip it, you can use one side for meat and one side for veggies. If you will be cooking the veggies, then it should be fine to prep them on the same board as the meat.
There is definitely validity to using two boards, especially if you have very young/old or immunocompromised members of the family. However, for everyone, it is probably best to not prepare vegetables/fruit which will be eaten raw on the same surface on which raw meat was prepared.
Using a separate cutting board (and knifes, and ideally counter space) is the way to prevent cross-contamination for restaurant patrons with severe food allergies. By having this system in place, you don’t have to worry when someone comes in and tells the staff that they are allergic - you’ve already got the appropriate precautions in place.
Or some fish may be used raw or very close to that.
The method helps the cook keep contamination issues in mind rather than just working on autopilot and potentially screwing up bigtime.
I personally have a bamboo cutting board that is used for anything non-meat, and some flexible plastic cutting mats with non-slip backing, color-coded for the meat (blue = seafood, red = beef/pork, orange = poultry).
Pork is actually a very clean meat, and it has been for decades. Both pork and beef are sometimes eaten raw (though this isn’t highly recommended, even though it’s likely to be safe). The “pork is dirty” meme is from trichinosis. Cases in the US are something along the lines of 20 per year, almost all of them wild game related.
Secondly, beef and fish are both “supposed” to be cooked to 145, according to the USDA. Pork should also be a 145 meat, with trichinosis being the only real reason it’s listed at 160.
Anyway, I’ve never heard an admonition to use different boards for different meats, other than poultry.
Studies have shown that using wooden cutting boards naturally de-germinate without the need for bleach. Plain soap and water is fine for cleaning them.
Plastic, on the other hand, is actually LESS sanitary for cutting meats.
I have a bg bamboo cutting board with about a half-dozen different color-coded cutting mats that store inside a slot cut into it. Red for beef, blue for fish, yellow for chicken, green for veggie…some other color for cheese…etc.
If you have a fish allergy, sometimes even just the oils from fish will trigger it. If you order a beef dish to avoid this, but they cut the fish and the beef on the same board, you’re screwed.
Can you point me to those studies? I have heard the exact opposite - that the porous and water-absorbent nature of wood tends to support bacterial growth if not cleaned well.
All muscle has bacteria in it, including your own. Fruits and vegetables are, generally, free of germs.
Until a decade or two ago, chicken meat was as safe as any other. At some time, salmonella became a significant hazard in chicken, so we now go to a lot of trouble to keep raw chicken juices away from everything else.
In my own kitchen, I have one meat board, which is bleached after every use, and I seldom use more than one meat in the same meal. The rest of my boards (maple, bamboo, and plastic) are washed in hot water and detergent regularly.
My chef friend says the board o’ health wouldn’t let a restaurant get away with using a wooden board, except a grandfathered-in butcher block.
In our house, if a cutting board is used for raw meat, it immediately goes into the sink when the meat comes off of it. If there’s more stuff to cut after that, we use a different cutting board. We generally use knives that are designated as parve (neither meat nor dairy) for cutting up vegetables to go with a meat meal, so we usually aren’t using the same knives, either. (You can’t use a parve knife on a cutting board that had just had raw meat on it)
All cutting boards must be washed in the dishwasher, because of germs and because I hate scrubbing dishes by hand, so our cutting boards are all plastic. They’re generally color-coded for kosher purposes as well (the meat and dairy ones are different colors, to make mix-ups harder).
I’ve read that the trichina worm, vanishingly rare as it is in modern meat, dies at 137. So 145 (pull when it hits 140, let carryover take it to 145) is perfect.