January Hotline

Answers on micro-plastic free cutting boards and safe nonstick pans

Welcome to the first edition of Hotline! This is a perk for paid subscribers: We collect your burning food questions and get you answers. Paid subscribers help sustain a heavily reported publication like Consumed. So, thanks all! We appreciate your faith in us and are excited to see the questions already rolling in.

This month, we are answering two questions – both related to upgrading your everyday cookware: cutting boards, those kitchen workhorses, and nonstick pans.

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Can you tell me what kind of cutting boards we should be using to avoid microplastics AND not poison ourselves with salmonella? —Megan, New Jersey

Implicit in this question is the justified frustration that in trying to solve one problem, we often create another. Some decades ago, many of us swapped wood cutting boards, which we worried might harbor dangerous bacteria, for easy-to-clean-and-care-for plastic ones. Now it turns out, that every chop of a knife on those plastic cutting board can release — surprise! — tiny bits of plastic, which can get into our food and then our bodies.