rickster wrote:I read a review on Amazon that said you shouldn't cut meat on it? Why not? Where else would you cut meat?
There are concerns that bacteria/microbes from cutting meat like chicken will end up in the grooves knives create in the wooden board and since you can't run them through a high temperarature dishwasher, you won't be able to sterilize the board to get rid of the germs.
People with this concern would recommend using plastic boards for meat that you run through the washer afterwards.
Wooden boards are perfectly safe, perhaps safer than knife-scarred plastics: This link may be useful:
UC-Davis wrote:Our research was first intended to develop means of disinfecting wooden cutting surfaces at home, so that they would be almost as safe as plastics. Our safety concern was that bacteria such as Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella, which might contaminate a work surface when raw meat was being prepared, ought not remain on the surface to contaminate other foods that might be eaten without further cooking. We soon found that disease bacteria such as these were not recoverable from wooden surfaces in a short time after they were applied, unless very large numbers were used. New plastic surfaces allowed the bacteria to persist, but were easily cleaned and disinfected. However, wooden boards that had been used and had many knife cuts acted almost the same as new wood, whereas plastic surfaces that were knife-scarred were impossible to clean and disinfect manually, especially when food residues such as chicken fat were present. Scanning electron micrographs revealed highly significant damage to plastic surfaces from knife cuts.
So if you don't have a dishwasher, you're better off with wood.
I buy cheap hardwood cutting boards, clean them with bleach and replace them when they get too shabby. I find it convenient to have several so I don't have to disinfect the one I'm using for meat when I also need to cut up something else in the same meal. I haven't tried bamboo, but I suspect its properties would be similar to hardwoods.