Herb Chopping Board available from Lifestyle products

Protecting your work top – get the best from your cutting boards/work top savers

If you have a super new kitchen to work in, or just want to protect your kitchen work tops, then having the right cutting boards and work top savers in your kitchen is important – and there are some great designs to choose from.

But first choose the material to suit your needs. Cutting boards or work top savers are generally made from one of four materials:

• Wood
• Acrylic or plastic
• Melamine
• Glass

Their main purpose is to protect your kitchen worktop or counter when cutting, carving or slicing as well as from hot items taken straight from the oven or stove top which might damage your worktop.

Wooden boards

Traditionally wooden cutting boards were made from Pine. However, most boards are now made from hard woods from managed forests; usually Beech or Hevea Rubberwood.

Although most wooden boards have two flats surfaces making them reversible, some do have channels, or grooves, which take away fat when carving hot roasted meat or crumbs when carving bread.

Food hygienists are divided on the merits of wooden boards versus plastic boards. One side says that wood harbours germs and bacteria, whereas others say that the natural properties of wood are far more effective at beating germs than wiping a cloth over or hand washing a plastic board.

Look out for two accreditations to show that the original wood came from a managed (or re-planted) forest. These are FSC or PEFC accreditation (Forestry Stewardship Commission or Pan European Forestry Commission).

Mixed Spice Chopping Board available from Lifestyle products

Acrylic or plastic boards

Plastic cutting boards can be injection moulded from polythene, polypropylene and / or acrylic, and in many cases, can be used on both sides.

Some plastic boards contain an anti-bacterial element such as ‘Microban’, which it is claimed will reduce the spreading of germs, as well as help in the cross-contamination of bacteria from different food types.

Often ranges of boards are colour coded – either by adding colour to the whole board, on a corner, or via a wire handle, so that you can identify separate boards to prepare different foods, e.g. one board for cooked meat and one for raw meat.

Plastic boards are kind to knife blades, and are recommended by major knife companies along with wooden boards as good cutting surfaces.

Melamine boards

Melamine boards are made by laminating several layers of hardboard in a steam press with a decorative print on top of the hardboard and then a sheet of melamine. The boards are then cut into the required shapes and often have rubber feet added so they can be easily lifted from the worktop.

However, as with glass boards, melamine boards will blunt knives, and are therefore not ideal as cutting boards. The melamine layer will also be easily damaged by a sharp knife, and so will not last as long as other cutting boards.

Melamine is however a good work top saver, as it has high resistance to heat.

Glass boards

Glass boards are made from toughened glass, which has a ceramic content making them extremely tough. The decoration/colour is applied by heat bonding the design or coloured sheet to the glass. Many boards will also have a backing sheet. If the board is dropped it can shatter, although this is unusual and only happens very rarely. However on these occasions the backing sheet will prevent shattered glass shards scattering all over the place.

Toughened glass withstands the heat of metal pans or ceramic dishes straight from the oven, and so can be used as worktop savers.

However, glass boards are not ideal for cutting, as they will blunt knives, as well as making a very unpleasant grating noise as the knife blade hits the glass.