What Oil Is Best For A Cutting Board?
One question we get asked a lot is why is Roostmade Organic Wood Oil Superior to Mineral oil?
Short Answer: Mineral Oil Simply Just Sucks.
Long Answer: Mineral oil is a common way to protect cutting boards. I’ve used it, and I don’t like it, that’s why I started Roostmade. Many other experienced woodworkers and people who value quality and care for the environment feel the same. Mineral oil is a byproduct of manufacturing crude oil to make gasoline. Mineral oil is a highly refined form of petroleum oil and similar to the oil used in the ink of newspapers, it never truly dries, stays somewhat tacky, and therefore indefinitely attractive to grime.
Mineral Oil is a very low performing oil for cutting boards because over a short time, it simply washes away and needs to be reapplied. So essentially, with mineral oil, the more you use it the more you have to use it. Because it naturally cures/dries, with Roostmade the more you use it, the less you have to.
Manufacturing mineral oil is dirty for the environment, it’s not natural, and feels icky on your skin.
Some use coconut oil or olive oil for cutting boards, which is NOT recommended as a way to finish wood. These other oils will never dry or cure, ever, they will eventually go rancid when exposed to air which will make a cutting board stinky and Sticky.
Roostmade organic wood finish products are made out of cold pressed organic walnut oil. Walnut oil is one of the very few natural oils classified as a “drying-oil”, which means it combines chemically with oxygen in the air to dry into a tough, plastic-like finish. This “drying” process is called Polymerization.
Master woodworkers have praised walnut oil for centuries, and you know who else loves walnut oil? Renaissance painters. Leonardo DaVinci always made his own oil paints out of walnut oil, he chose it because it was the most clear and non yellowing of all of the drying oils.
Your hardware store will sell other oils that polymerize, many of these oils labelled “polymerized” or “boiled” have actually had harsh chemical driers mixed into the oil to speed the drying. The trade off is that these oils contain hazardous solvents, so save them for projects outside of the kitchen and away from your food.
At Roostmade we treat our oil to a proprietary natural and harmless process to aid the drying time. We include this naturally treated oil into every bottle of Roostmade because we are committed to creating the highest quality product on the market, using only the most innovative natural methods. Lastly, our walnut oil has been refined properly by the professionals who produced it, this process reacts with the proteins in the oil, so their allergenicity is virtually eliminated. For scientific references on allergenicity go to the FAQ section of our website at www.roostmade.co