I love to have beautiful wood pieces in my home. In order to keep them in tip-top shape I try to keep the wood well conditioned. I use several different products for this throughout my home. But in the kitchen I have for many years used mineral oil. This is something that is recommended to even feed your children if they are a bit stopped up with their digestion. It can help them improve bowel movements and is safe for contact with food.
The big thing that they don’t tell you about mineral oil is that it is petroleum based. Do the research. I have done it numerous times and although it does not mention it on the label, and it will tell you it is food safe, go ahead and eat it, and that it doesn’t go rancid on your cutting boards, it is made from petroleum. In Europe these sorts of ingredients must be disclosed. But here in the USA, for whatever reason, they simply say mineral oil and sometimes vitamin E is added for stability. How crazy is that!
So in my search to continue to remove plastic and petroleum from my home, I went in search of a way to condition cutting boards that did not involve mineral oil. You can use beeswax. But honestly I find that these waxes can get cloudy and cakey. So I did not want straight beeswax. I also use a beautiful hard wax sealer on my hair forks. That is child and food safe. But it comes in a really small bottle and is very expensive. Fine to stretch out through several dozen hair forks, but it would not go very far on the large cutting boards I like to use.
Presently I did find a beeswax paste combined with orange oil. I am trying this and if you would like to see the YouTube process you can find it here.
But can’t you just use olive oil or vegetable oil? Well, yes and no. This is because food-based oils will go rancid. Many many years ago when I was a new bride, I used these oils on my cutting board. I used olive oil and flax oil which is really really quick to spoil. They smelled horrible. It took a lot of scrubbing and sanding to get that oil out. And I had to leave it out in the sun. It was really an ordeal to get those cutting boards back to shipshape.
But my point is, if you want to have a petroleum-free product, do a bit of research first. Try to find something that has a beeswax base with maybe some other oil or fat-derived ingredient. You want to condition the wood and keep it supple. I will be exploring several other combinations in order to treat my cutting boards. I love the look of a freshly treated cutting board because the colors are so beautiful and they look appealing as I work. Nobody wants to stir a soup with a dry wood spoon. And my daughter gave me a beautiful olive wood spoon this year for Christmas. Treat your wooden utensils like living items in your kitchen. You need to feed them once in a while with a good treatment.
If you must use mineral oil it would be better than nothing and having them dry. But do know that it is petroleum based. And, here in my Sprouted Dreams cottage, I am trying to live a life without those materials.
So I thought I would pass this information along to you. What are you treating your cutting boards with?
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