Plastic vs Wood Cutting Boards: What the Food Safety Research Actually Shows

For decades, the standard food safety advice was simple: use plastic. Plastic is non-porous, goes in the dishwasher, and can be sanitized easily. Wood is porous, absorbs moisture, and harbors bacteria. Case closed.

Then in 1994, Dean Cliver and his team at UC Davis ran a series of experiments that complicated that story considerably. Their findings have been discussed, argued over, and frequently mischaracterized ever since. The real picture is messier than either the pro-plastic or pro-wood camps usually acknowledge.

What Cliver’s Research Found

The UC Davis team inoculated both plastic and hardwood cutting boards with Salmonella, Listeria, and other foodborne bacteria, then measured bacterial recovery under different cleaning conditions.

Their key finding was this: bacteria applied to the surface of a new hardwood board were pulled down into the wood grain quickly and could not be recovered from the cutting surface. When they incubated the wood overnight, bacteria didn’t return to the surface. The wood appeared to trap them, and survival rates in the wood grain were low.

New plastic boards behaved differently. The non-porous surface kept bacteria on top where they could be wiped away with soap and water. Easy to clean. Better than wood in that comparison.

But used boards told a different story. Plastic boards develop knife-scored grooves with use. Those grooves become persistent traps for bacteria. In Cliver’s experiments, bacteria in the grooves of used plastic boards survived standard hand washing and — critically — survived dishwasher cleaning in some cases. The grooves create a protected microenvironment that cleaning can’t always reach.

The conclusion Cliver drew was that new plastic boards are easier to sanitize, but old plastic boards may be worse than wood. The research received significant coverage and introduced real doubt into the “always use plastic” recommendation.

Where the Evidence Gets Complicated

Cliver’s work is real and peer-reviewed, but it’s not the final word. A 2007 analysis by Moore and colleagues noted methodological questions about bacterial inoculation levels and board preparation. The conditions in controlled lab experiments don’t perfectly mirror kitchen use. And the specific bacteria tested, inoculation levels, and board conditions all affect the results.

What the research does establish clearly: a heavily used, knife-scored plastic board is not the safe default it’s assumed to be. The visual cleanliness of a plastic board can be misleading — bacteria can survive in grooves that look clean.

Wood has properties that genuinely work against bacterial survival, including low moisture availability in dry hardwoods and possible antibacterial compounds in some species. But these properties depend on the type of wood and its condition. A cracked, wet, poorly maintained wood board is not what Cliver’s lab was testing.

What FDA Actually Recommends and Why

The FDA recommendation for food service favors non-porous cutting surfaces. In professional kitchens, that guidance makes operational sense. Commercial settings need surfaces that can be sanitized at documented temperatures, logged, and inspected. A plastic board that goes through a 180°F commercial dishwasher cycle meets verifiable sanitation standards in a way a wood board can’t.

That institutional logic doesn’t automatically translate to your kitchen. Home use involves lower volumes, less frequent use, and a very different risk context than a restaurant preparing hundreds of meals per day.

The FDA consumer guidance acknowledges this nuance. Their recommendation for home kitchens is to use a cutting board that is easy to clean thoroughly, to wash boards with hot soapy water after each use, and to replace boards when they develop excessive grooves or cracks — regardless of material.

The Variable That Actually Matters

Cross-contamination is the real issue, and it has nothing to do with board material.

If you cut raw chicken on a board and then cut a tomato on the same surface without washing it, you’ve created a contamination pathway that no amount of board material selection prevents. The FDA estimates that most cutting-board-related foodborne illness comes from cross-contamination during food prep, not from residual bacteria surviving between meal preparations.

A simple two-board system — one for raw meat and poultry, one for produce and ready-to-eat foods — reduces that risk more than any material choice. Color-coding boards by use (red for raw meat, green for produce) is the standard approach in food service and works fine at home too.

Beyond that, the actual research supports using whichever material you’ll maintain properly. A well-maintained hardwood board cleaned after each use is safer than a heavily grooved plastic board that looks clean but isn’t. And both are safer than any board used carelessly.

References appear at the bottom of this page.