Even if they look sparkling clean, chances are your cutting boards — especially wooden ones, which are naturally porous — have accumulated some grime throughout their use. At best, this is merely gross, and at worst it can cause a risk of serious food-borne illness.
Fortunately, one home cook and cleaning expert has a cheap and easy hack for revitalizing even the grimiest of cutting boards.
@homeandawaywithdeb Found this old grimy cutting board at my aunts and decided to make it food worthy again. You can do this too! Regular maintenance of our cutting boards is essential to eliminate food odour, soap residue and bacteria. Half a lemon and salt and rub all over board. Rinse well and let it dry thoroughly on its side before storing in a cupboard or drawer. #kitchenhack ♬ Funk It Up - John Etkin-Bell
The scoop
Home hacks guru Deb (@homeandawaywithdeb) posted a video explaining her DIY hack, which uses only lemon and salt to "clean, disinfect, and revitalize cutting boards."
"Found this old grimy cutting board at my aunts and decided to make it food worthy again. You can do this too!" she wrote in the caption. "Regular maintenance of our cutting boards is essential to eliminate food odour, soap residue and bacteria."
As she demonstrates, the hack couldn't be cheaper or easier. All you have to do is sprinkle salt liberally over the board's surface and then rub half a lemon over it, squeezing out the juice to mix with the salt. It will create a cleaning paste, which you can scrub all over the entirety of the board for a minute or so, covering the entire surface.
Afterward, she instructs, "Rinse well and let it dry thoroughly on its side before storing in a cupboard or drawer."
How it's working
There's some serious science to back up Deb's method. Multiple studies — including ones from the National Institutes of Health, the South African Journal of Botany, and IOPScience — have found that lemon juice contains antibacterial properties that keep bacteria and pathogens at bay.
And because it's so effective and so cheap, lemon is quite popular in many natural cleaning products and DIY recipes. From soaking peels in vinegar to create a cleaning spray to boiling lemon wedges in water to create a great-smelling floor disinfectant, to using lemon wedges to clean off limescale in your tea kettle, there are countless uses for this all-natural cleaning agent.
Salt is another favorite for natural cleaning enthusiasts. For example, sustainable living website Treehugger suggests using it for everything from cleaning cast irons to removing laundry stains.
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Saves money 💰 Aside from being super cheap, using ingredients like lemon, salt, vinegar, black tea, eggshells, and even sunlight as cleaning agents is a great way to keep your home free of microplastics and hazardous chemicals. Many common detergents, cleaning powders, and disinfecting sprays actually contain toxins that can trigger respiratory illness — and in some rare cases, premature death.
What people are saying
Viewers were excited about the idea and ready to try it for themselves.
"Always wondered the best way to clean my chopping board especially after meat," one person said.
Another enthused: "Salt and lemon. Mother Nature knows best!!!"
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