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Comment by MisterTea | Hacker News Reader

What about wood?

Wood is safe, but since it's organic has the potential to fuel the growth of molds, bacteria, and other microorganisms. I'm not sure the best way to sanitize wood from these elements? You could light the wood on fire, but then you wouldn't have any wood leftover.

You can seal woods (polyurethane, linseed oil, etc) and they take well to disinfectants (UV, povidone iodine, etc) and can be submerged in common commercial disinfectant washes.

It's just uncommon in a commercial kitchen because it costs 4-5x the price, depending on how many you want and how many you'll destroy from use over time. A cheap steel implement in a commercial kitchen will last 4-5x the lifetime of a wood one but that same wood implement will last just fine in a home kitchen.

> polyurethane

If you are using wood to avoid plastic but coat your wood in polyurethane or any other fossil fuel based compound, I kind of feel like you’ve gone full circle back to consuming plastic.

I provide it simply as an example of one way to seal woods.

Wood cutting boards ("butcher's blocks") have been a popular item for as long as the profession of butcher has been around and longer.

Microbial growth on wood is really only an issue when conditions are right -- namely, when the wood is wet for an extended period of time.

Washing wood utensils immediately after use, with some soap if needed, and drying quickly and completely, should eliminate 99%+ of the risk.

I don't know where this "unless the surface is sterile it is significantly dangerous" thing comes from. How many people have died from bacteria that grew on wooden utensils that were regularly washed? Is it anything other than zero?

I've heard the opposite, that wood has anti-microbial properties that results in less cross contamination than plastic, even though it is harder to sterilize. For example, here is one study on cutting boards[1].

[1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31113021/

Wooden spoons go in the dishwasher and then they're perfectly safe. Wooden chopping boards have been shown to be safer than plastuc, because they don't get the cuts that plastic boards do, which harbour microorganisms. Cuts in wooden boards close themselves up.

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