Hi Mark -- When you say A bigger issue for me would be to utilize common woods for use with foodstuffs. Do you mean that some of the more common woods such as Sycamore, Ash and Oak would not be wise choice for food stuff ? as a relative beginner here I am still unclear which are safe and which are not so desirable -- Julian
Hi Julian
No I am not saying Ash, sycamore or oak would not be suitable as they are.
Pretty much any wood non toxic can be used, a sure fire way to know which is the best woods to use are to look historically at those used for treen. r look at wooden toys in shops to see what has been used. If it is safe for children you can be sure it is fine to us. Beech, box sycamore as well as others have been historically used, and it is not only the consideration of if the wood is poisonous or not which need to be considered.
IE Oak is probably fine but it contains a lot of tannin so if you use metal utensils other than stainless it could mark/blacken if used as a chopping board. Probably fine as most utensils today are stainless.
Also open grain woods such as oak, ash could trap particles of food so a close grained wood such a sycamore and beech were traditionally used for cutting boards, spoons etc. Fruit woods such as cherry and apple have also been used extensively as well as ash. If you want to make a vessel to hold liquid an open grain wood is not the best you would be better with a close grain hardwood.
Oak however is used for storing wine and sherry so it is probably safe to say it is food safe.
Just stay away from known poisonous woods (Yew as one), we wouldn't make a child's rattle out of Yew as they are likely to chew it or suck on it.
Personally I would not use heavily spalted wood, as like Andy pointed out it can get soft and this is no use for a utility item but I have read somewhere that spalted Maple has been linked to cancer. But how true this is I can not say.
The issue is there is so much information and cross information, mostly written by people that have heard it fro 'so-in-so' it is confusing and often no scientific or evidence base studies or facts can be attributed to it.
So it comes back to common sense, research and doing what has gone before, if it isn't broke I wouldn't fix it. For my utility bowls I use beech, sycamore and ash as I know historically they are safe and I apply only a purchased food safe finish. But that is just me, I do what I believe is correct but it does not mean it is the only way.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/wis30.pdf this may help
