When you’re rustling up a meal, the prep can make or break your culinary skills – meaning top-notch equipment is key to nailing the perfect dish.
Solid cookware, razor-sharp knives, and other kitchen tools are crucial for skilled cooking.
Naturally, a decent chopping board to dice your ingredients is an absolute must-have before tossing everything into your pot. But there’s a widespread myth about the best material for your chopping board, with one particular type proving to be an unexpected haven for germs.
For those without a dishwasher, you may want to switch up your chopping board choice.
A snippet from the classic BBC show QI has been doing the rounds on TikTok recently, in which the show’s guest panel delve into the topic of chopping boards and the best material to ward off germs, reports the Express.
Quizzing the group, host Sandi Toksvig asked: “To prevent bacteria what should your chopping board be made of?” Surprisingly, the answer isn’t plastic, but wood instead.
Guest panellist and comedian Sara Pascoe chipped in saying: “For ages they thought the plastic ones were better. People thought that wood has these little grooves, and bacteria would go in there and live and multiply.”
She explained further: “But then they actually found that plastic was much worse.”
Sandi Toksvig proved the point by stating that “99.9% of the bacteria that is added to a wooden chopping board has disappeared within three minutes of application.”
“And on plastic ones it’s all still there,” she remarked, revealing a microscopic image of some nasty bacteria on the large screens.
She pointed out that the ‘only good thing’ about plastic chopping boards is their suitability for cleaning in the dishwasher, which isn’t an option for wooden boards.
The intense heat of the dishwasher should eliminate any harmful germs that remain on the surface after food preparation.
Sandi summed up: “The most important thing, of course, is to wash them and then replace them when they get a bit knackered.”