Brilio.net - Cutting boards are one of the most essential kitchen utensils and are often used for cooking. This tool has a safe and comfortable surface for cutting various food ingredients, from vegetables, meat, to bread. Among the several types, plastic cutting boards are most often chosen because they are light and easy to wash.
Indeed, plastic cutting boards have a number of advantages of their own. Not only are they lightweight, plastic cutting boards are also sold at affordable prices compared to wooden or stainless steel cutting boards. But do you know? Actually, the use of plastic cutting boards has quite dangerous side effects.
A woman named Lydia once explained this further through one of the videos she uploaded. In her Instagram account @lydia.kusyono, this cooking content creator admitted that plastic cutting boards used to cut food can cause microplastics to mix with the food consumed.
"Every time we cut or even put it in the dishwasher, plastic fragments can get mixed into our food," said Lydia, quoted by BrilioFood from Instagram @lydia.kusyono on Thursday (8/8).
photo: Instagram/@lydia.kusyono
In the video, she shows a tutorial when the cutting board is constantly exposed to the sharp edge of the banana when used to cut food. Who would have thought, when she made a cutting motion (like cutting food), there were many layers of plastic peeling off. Lydia immediately collected the plastic fragments using the tip of her knife.
"I tried just a cutting motion, and it turned out there was a layer of plastic that came along. This is what is called microplastic. Just imagine when we cook, this microplastic enters our digestive system," he explained further.
photo: Instagram/@lydia.kusyono
Reported from a journal on the media.neliti.com page, a study from the University of Michigan revealed that scratches from cutting make cutting boards difficult to clean. In addition, the plastic fragments that arise also have the potential to be mixed with the food cut using the cutting board. Not only that, the bacteria contained in plastic cutting boards are more numerous than bacteria on wooden cutting boards.
photo: Instagram/@lydia.kusyono
Considering this, Lydia then suggested replacing the use of safer cutting boards, such as wooden or stainless steel cutting boards. In addition to minimizing the growth of bacteria, wooden and stainless cutting boards are also more durable and safer to use than plastic cutting boards. However, of course with the note, the wooden and stainless cutting boards used must still be properly maintained.
Since it was uploaded on July 26, the video has been watched more than 349 thousand times. It is no wonder that many other Instagram users have flooded the comments column. Some of these netizens admitted that they often use wooden or stainless steel cutting boards which are indeed stronger and more durable.
"I've been on the wooden cutting board team, Sis, for a long time," said Instagram user @rantieliung.
"The best-selling wood in the village is durable," wrote the Instagram account @_vannndik.
"And it's more durable if you use wood or stainless steel," commented the Instagram account @_drainosaurus.