Chopping boards are always one of the culprits in these cross-contamination cases. For example, handling both vegetables and raw poultry on the same chopping board may cause cross-contamination. After handling and cutting raw poultry, the Salmonella bacteria from the raw poultry might transfer to the chopping board and when vegetables are handled straight after that, the Salmonella bacteria may transfer to the vegetables, and that is how cross-contamination works. For this reason, chopping boards are separated into different colors for different types of ingredients to prevent cross-contamination.
However, bacteria is not only found because of cross-contamination. Naturally, if chopping boards are not cleaned and sanitized properly after use, bacteria like E.coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter bacteria can be found. That is why it is important for people handling food to know the basic of kitchen hygiene such as proper way washing and cleaning of kitchen equipment
In a normal Asian kitchen, chopping boards are separated into five different colors:
- White: For bakery products such as cakes, breads, pastries and also pies, it also include dairy products such as butter and cheese.
- Tan: For different types of raw seafood such as fishes, squids, prawns, lobsters or even jellyfish.
- Green: For different types of fruits and vegetables.
- Red: For different types of raw meat such as beef, pork and lamb, and also for different types of raw poultry such as chicken, duck and turkey.
- Blue: For different types of ready-to-eat food such as canned goods and it is also for cooked food.
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| Picture 1 - color codes for chopping boards |
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| Picture 2 - blue colored chopping boards |
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| Picture 3 - white, red & green colored chopping boards (left to right) |
The post is very informative about the different colour of cutting boards for different types of food. I also learnt about the reasons for having different colours.
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ReplyDelete(ALEX)
ReplyDeleteThank you Ezekiel! I hope this post really helped you on the understanding of different color chopping boards :-)
To sum up what I've said above in the post, it is really very important that different colors of chopping boards are used when preparing different types of food to prevent food-borne illnesses or cross-contamination. From what I know, there are some kitchen out there that is still using the same chopping board for different types of ingredients, so it is quite concerning and I hope people know how important this issue really is.