# Cork cutting boards. Are they any good?



## anton kudris (Aug 7, 2013)

Hi there!

While end grain wooden cutting boards are considered to be the best for the knives, they aren't always the best for cooks. My wife is cooking much more often then I do, and she complains that our end grain board is too heavy (it's somewhere around 4kg or 9pounds).

So I was looking for another lighter cutting board for my wife to cook comfortably. What I have found so far, bamboo and plastic are lighter then wood but much worse for the knives. Rubber boards are better then bamboo or plastic, but still not as good as wood.

…and I've found wooden board that fits my weight and sizes requests, but suddenly stumbled upon Cork cutting boards. And now I'm curious if those cork cutting boards are good or not.

For example this Bambu Cork


has pretty good reviews and I wonder what you think of those boards. Should I just stick with wood or try those cork boards?


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## mikelm (Dec 23, 2000)

The knife-friendly status of wood is a given. Another aspect is sanitation.  My son has made and sold many wood boards and found several research reports from the Department of Food Sciences at the University of Wisconsin that concluded wood boards are more sanitary than plastic, rubber, or - God forbid - glass ones. Bamboo hadn't been introduced at the time. I don't know if there has been any research covering them. Probably worth a little looking around the web.

They found that wood boards, being a little bit porous allowed any unwashed microorganisms to seep into the pores of the wood...   where they died.

Maybe just keep your wood board, send your wife to the gym.

Mike


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## mikelm (Dec 23, 2000)

Here's more on wood/bamboo cutting boards, including antibacterial properties.

http://www.ehow.com/about_6604085_bamboo-cutting-boards-bacteria.html

Mike


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## anton kudris (Aug 7, 2013)

The lack of any feedback about *cork* cutting boards forced me to buy a light wooden board for my wife. It's not an end grain board so it looks pretty scratchy after only a week of use or so.

So while we don't need any more boards now, I do hope that there would be some trustworthy reviews about cork boards in the future. If they aren't too soft I might wanna get one in the future. Might also consider gym instead


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