How to make a cutting board

[RicodJour]

Please double check the newsgroup name, you Philistine! ;)

R

[Lee Michaels]

"Lew Hodgett" wrote

Does this mean you are going to create plastic cutting board art?? Think of the marketing potential!

[CW]

Wesson oil for ours and the same for my mothers. I would bet that most of the "going rancid" replies are from people that are just repeating what others say rather than having any experience.

[Upscale]

As well, I've read that bacteria analysis in wooden cutting boards compared to plastic type cutting boards, shows fewer bacteria. It's proposed that the oils and such in wood inhibit the growth of bacteria more than the surfaces of plastic products.

Of course, in any scenario it's prudent to clean cutting boards of any type after use. There's nothing I hate worse than bit's of left over chili peppers getting mixed into my chopped up strawberries.

[notbob]

If I was one in a bazillion, laxitives and hemorroid meds wouldn't be a billion dollar industry.

I'm not saying using mineral oil on a cutting board will automatically give one 'roids', but ingesting it does your body no good and it's not as benign as you might believe. I will agree the amounts one would ingest using it on a cutting board are negligible. OTOH, I don't care what the oil companies would like us to believe, I will not knowingly ingest petroleum products, no matter how refined. You, of course, are free to do as you like. ;)

nb

[RicodJour]

I understand your concern for your health due to your experiences, but please recognize that you are ingesting petroleum products, laboratory chemicals and other food stuffs untouched by nature every single day. It doesn't matter is the label says organic, free-range or anything else.

Pretty much everything you eat is fertilized one way or another, and fertilizer is made from ammonia, and ammonia is made from natural gas and nitrogen (fixed by the Haber process). In other words, you are, and are consuming, petroleum products each and every meal.

If you think that's weird, check out Haber's life. He was responsible for one of the greatest boons to mankind and also for some of the most horrific products ever made.

R

[Douglas Johnson]

Or pure tung oil. -- Doug

[Leon]

I believe you are probably right. I suspect the one that did go rancid probably had other bacteria problems in the mix.

[SonomaProducts.com]

[SonomaProducts.com]

[SonomaProducts.com]

[Tom Watson]

"It looks like frozen snot."

L.F. Herreshoff

Regards,

Tom Watson

[J. Clarke]

Rancidificati>>> My wife has never used anything but vegetable oil on the butcher

[Lew Hodgett]

You forgot one thing "IT'S PLASTIC!".

Didn't forget, if you look at my post I acknowledge that plastic is very functional but BFU.

Beauty is reserved for wood, functionally is not.

Lew

[Lew Hodgett]

But no teradeos or dry rot.

Lew

[dadiOH]

Not to worry, there will be more opportunities...many more :)

[dadiOH]

Maybe the manufacturers will take a hint and make them wood grained. Or get a black one and say it's ebony :)

[SonomaProducts.com]

[RicodJour]

Thanks for the putrefaction. :)

R

[nailshooter41]

Just to expand on Sonoma's post....

DO NOT use Boiled Linseed Oil on any food surface. Ever. BLO is dries out quickly due to the introduction of the aforementioned chemical driers which are indeed quite poisonous.

However, UNlike most of today's resin finishes which are toxic when wet or uncured, then food safe when cured, the poison component does not go away when the resins cure. Think of the old oil based paints with lead in them. The paint can be dry for decades and the inert metals in the finish are as deadly as they day they were manufactured.

There is no such thing as "PURE" BLO. It doesn't exist.

The misnomer of "boiled linseed oil" is a myth itself. IIRC, the "boiling process" is the introduction of metal salts in the mixing vat.

"Boiled" Linseed Oil is manufactured by taking linseed oil and adding metallic driers to the oil itself, in the same fashion we used to add Japan Drier (again, nothing to do with Japan) to oil based (sometimes linseed/tung oil) paints.

Without metallic driers, the oil is simply "linseed oil" or "raw linseed oil". It takes weeks or months to simply dry a bit. But without driers, the raw stuff is actually edible. Outside of making bread, I am not sure what the linseed oil/flaxseed oil is actually good for in normal use.

"Boiled linseed oil" came about as a quick fix for someone that wanted an oil finish without the time or trouble involved.

Here's something from Russ Fairfield. Not a professional, but knowledgeable: