Hot take: Overheard a guy at Home Depot say wooden spoons are unhygienic and now I think he's been brainwashed by the plastic industry.

He said wooden spoons trap bacteria and I wanted to ask him if he's ever heard of soap and water, like how do you think people cooked for thousands of years before silicone spatulas existed?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_oscar10d ago

My grandma used the same wooden spoon for like forty years and she’s still kicking at 92 with no food poisoning stories... some people just don’t get that wood naturally kills bacteria once it dries out completely. That’s why cutting boards are still made of wood in professional kitchens, they actually have studies showing wooden surfaces are safer than plastic over time. I feel bad for that guy honestly, he probably threw out all his wooden spoons and replaced them with those rubber spatulas that melt if you look at them wrong. Plastic industry really did a number on common sense with their marketing campaigns about "non-porous" being better for you. It’s just sad watching people fall for that stuff when our ancestors managed just fine with simple wood and hot water.

laura_wright6d ago

Totally agree with @the_oscar, my dad still uses the same wooden spoon from the 80s and he's never had a single tummy ache from it. Meanwhile I've seen people toss out perfectly good wood spoons because some blog told them it's "unsanitary" like their grandma was secretly poisoning them for decades. Plastic industry really knew what they were doing when they convinced everyone that "non-porous" means "won't trap last week's spaghetti sauce particles" instead of "won't stop growing bacteria once it gets wet." Guess my ancestors were just really lucky they didn't have melting rubber spatulas in their campfires.